Miss Cleo, the famed TV psychic, has died at the age of 53, her rep confirmed to TMZ. She passed away in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday, July 26, following a battle with cancer.
Miss Cleo (real name: Youree Harris) was recently hospitalized, according to the site. She was moved to hospice care last week.
The star rose to fame in 1997 when she became a spokesperson for a psychic pay-per-call service. She was featured in infomercials under the name Cleo and claimed that she was speaking to listeners from Jamaica.
Harris used the catchphrase “Call me now!” during her humorous and energetic small-screen ads. She officially put down the phone and walked away from the job in 2003.
The L.A. native previously spoke about her work as a psychic in the documentaries Becoming Psychic (2010) and Hotline (2014). Additionally, she voiced the character Auntie Poulet in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in 2002.
Back in 2014, Miss Cleo opened up about her famous gig during an interview with Vice. “Well, most of us worked from our homes, not one big room. I was doing television, they had me touring everywhere, and I was always bothered by the fact that, you know, people took the ‘Call me now’ quote very earnestly,” she recalled at the time. “I was at Best Buy one day, and a gentleman said, ‘Miss Cleo, aren’t you supposed to be on the phone?’ I said, ‘Honey, do you really think that I do that while I’m traveling and doing press?’ I said, ‘You have a better chance of talking to me right here than you do if you called.’ I still remember my extension number, though. My extension was 16153.”
Harris admitted that fan interactions in general made her uneasy. “Unfortunately, yes,” she said when asked if she still got recognized. “I live in a little town, and everybody there knows who I am. But I’m just another neighbor. But there are places where I go and people are like, ‘Yo! Miss Cleo!’ and I try to run.”
