Who Was the Real Miss Cleo? Original Movie Sets Out to Tell Her Story

“Find out the truth!” “Call me now!”

After all, people had questions, and Miss Cleo and her tarot cards, odd accent and electrifying charisma provided answers. While she was marketed as a TV psychic, for many she was a trusted intimate counselor, the girlfriend who really told the hard truth, and was beloved by millions.

But who was the real Miss Cleo?

Her real name was Youree Harris, a single mother who described herself as a trained priestess who had many talents to receive divine information. These talents, combined with savvy marketing, catapulted her to iconic fame on the Psychic Readers Network in the 1990s and early 2000s. Years later, however, Harris was caught in a media maelstrom when the network was exposed for false advertising and fraud, and viewer anger and blame turned to her.

Lifetime has enlisted rapper Robin “The Lady of Rage” Allen to share Miss Cleo’s rise and fall, and ultimately her side of the story, in the emotional biopic Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall premiering Saturday, Aug. 10 at 8/7c.

“It was all about the timing for me. I feel like over the last two years, people are more publicly interested in supernatural and psychic abilities. I feel like the world is in a better place today to receive her story,” shares Jami McCoy-Lankford, one of the film’s executive producers. “I immediately became intrigued with her story when I heard the news of her death and that she lived in South Florida. I started researching her and looking into what happened to her after the big scandal in the ’90s. When I found out that she was just an employee of the Psychic Readers Network and not the person who received all the proceeds, which is not the way the media portrayed it during that time, I felt she needed to be somewhat vindicated, and the real story told.”

For McCoy-Lankford, the most emotional part of Miss Cleo’s story and in the film was when she was diagnosed with cancer and she conducts an interview towards the end of her life.

Watch Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall premiering on Lifetime Saturday, Aug. 10 at 8/7c.