Monstrous Celebrity Profile: Sylvia Browne

Everyone enjoys the world of celebrity but far too often we’re forced to read about the intelligent, the beautiful and the popular. What about all those famous people who have tar-like souls and ass-like faces? Holy Taco is here to make them feel loved too.

Talon-wielding harpy Sylvia Browne is easily confused with Montel William’s conjoined twin as the two seem to sponge off one another for any semblance of notoriety they can get while at the same time making daytime TV the brain-liquefying nightmare most of us try to avoid. She and Montel regularly placate a studio audience of misdirected, lost and easily swayed people with whatever horse nuggets will fit between commercial breaks, whether or not any of it is true.  This week she released a new book, her 4,765th about some shit or other, and has thus been stanking up 5 minute spots on news networks that need to pad out the hour.

Browne’s claim to fame is that she has psychic powers, has lived 54 previous lives, and knows what it’s like in Heaven. We can only hope that if there is a Heaven, and we go there, we don’t have to put up with her as being in Heaven with Sylvia Browne must be a lot like being at summer camp with a prolapsed colon that’s being chewed by raccoons.

She runs her own company and even a church which we assume revolves around making sacrifices of gold coins and good taste to large, bird-like statues of the woman. And while she claims to have assisted the FBI in solving crimes with her amazing abilities and charges $750 for a half hour of her time on the phone, she also has an equally amazing history of being totally full of crap.

Though she clearly has leagues of followers who believe every word she says, the fact that she predicted Michael Jackson would be found guilty in his child molestation trial, that George Bush would beat Bill Clinton in 1992 and that breast cancer would be cured in 1999 makes it seem like her spirit guide may be drinking on the job.

CHUD!  Kill it!

More noteworthy was her awesomely bad timing in being live on a radio show during the Sago Mine disaster of 2006. Early reports said 12 of the 13 miners were found alive which Browne, live on the air, said she knew would happen. Ya know, because she’s a psychic. Later in the same show when the report was changed because those men had not survived, Browne was quick to point out that when she said she knew they’d be found, she meant dead. So not only is she psychic, she’s got quite the silver tongue to cover her tracks with amazing excuses.

Wikipedia has a depressing list of people who went to Sylvia on Montel to get info on their loved ones, complete with all the completely wrong predictions they were given and what really happened to the people. Enough to make you wonder why exactly Montel keeps having the woman back. At this point she’s scoring more points for sex appeal than psychic accuracy, which is the most frightening thing you’re apt to read all day.

James Randi, prominent debunker of psychics and Santa Claus stunt double has one million dollars in fat cash for anyone who can prove they have paranormal abilities and challenged Browne live on Larry King way back in 2001. She has yet to actually get around to taking the challenge, probably due to a busy schedule of slowly decaying into a Jim Henson-like creation.