Entertainment
Top 10 Dr. Phil Guests
Whether you love him or loathe him, Dr. Phil has certainly made a name for himself in the day-time talk show realm by bringing in guests with basically every psychiatric malady known to man and at least attempting to help them get better. From drug users to teens with all sorts of problems, Dr. Phil first became a household name thanks to Oprah, who would frequently bring the doctor on her show to help with guests that needed (mostly) mental health assistance. Spinning that into his own show, he has become the most famous, influential and rich doctor in the world and while some say that he basically exploits (or worse, enables) the problems that those on his show have, there are instances where the exposure a guest has gotten on Dr. Phil’s show has lead to bigger and better things. So, we wanted to break down the Top 10 guests from the history of Dr. Phil, across the entire spectrum from the entertaining to the scary, the infamous to the viral. So, strap in!
10. Mother/Daughter Sugar Babies
One of the more viral episodes of Dr. Phil occurred when the mother/daughter sugar baby team of 26-year-old Rylee and her much older mother. If you’re not familiar, sugar babies are the counterpart of Sugar Daddies, who basically take care of their sugar babies by paying their bills and giving them lavish gifts like cars, cash or even homes. This relationship, most of the time, involves sex on some level and that’s why some people claim that it’s basically the same as prostitution, although from a strictly legal standpoint if it was illegal to have sex after the exchange of gifts or while paying someone’s bills then most dating would be monitored by a police officer. So, especially if sex isn’t a pre-condition it sounds like great work if you can get it, something that Rylee clearly believed as she was the one to convince her mother to also start doing the same. Rylee said that she charged $2,000 a DAY for her “companionship”, something that she would discount to $5,000 a week for her more valued customers. What made Rylee’s appearance on the show so viral, outside of the fact that her mother was part of her sugar team, is that she so eloquently explained why married men who have everything to lose end up spending that kind of money to talk to someone who is often a third of their age. While she claims that they simply want companionship or someone who listens, something their wives somehow stopped doing, she also admits that she has clients who have her mother and her strip down to their underwear and whip them. Worth every penny!
9. Hot for Teacher
More and more it seems that female teachers are being arrested for sleeping with their teenage students and that was the case when it came to 29-year-old Tanya Ramirez, a former teacher and coach from Corpus Christi, Texas. What makes this case different is that Ramirez was on national television adamantly defending her sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student. Their relationship began when the male student came into her classroom to ask her for her phone number, something she agreed to. After regularly texting for a week or two, they ended up flirting. Ramirez told Dr. Phil that she felt that she wasn’t doing anything wrong at that point because it was “not on school grounds” and because the student was beyond the age of consent in the state of Texas. While that is true, teachers are barred from sexual relationships with their students because, gross, so it was illegal for her to set up a date with her student which she did, at her home at 3 in the morning where they ended up having sex. Unbeknown to her, the student took a video of them doing the nasty and shared it with his friends which ended up giving the officials at the school the heads up as to what happened. Ramirez was called into the Principal’s office and fired and also ended up pleading guilty to having an “improper relationship with a student”, a second-degree felony in the State of Texas. She received seven-years probation and had her teacher’s license revoked, which seems like a slap on the wrist especially considering that she, again, went on national television to defend the practice.
8. Aileen, Sandie and Chris – The CRAZY Love Triangle
Chris and Sandie were married for years and had a child together, but ended up getting divorced eventually. After that, Chris moved out and needed to find a roommate, enter Aileen who responded to the ad and ended up hooking up with Chris after they had lived together for awhile. This is where it gets interesting as Aileen basically started harrassing Sandie, which isn’t unheard of on Dr. Phil, but it was the lengths that she went to do just that that makes her infamous to fans of the show. While both Chris and Sandie have stated that they’re over one another and only interact because they share a child together, Aileen seems to know better and has created numerous fake Facebook accounts to follow Sandie’s every move while constantly beratting her with personal name calling and the like. Beyond that, she’s even called Child Protective Services multiple times, making up false allegations in the hopes that Sandie would lose custody of the child she shares with Chris so that Chris would no longer have to talk to her. It turned out that Aileen had a history of this behavior and thus, spoiler alert, basically created this love triangle in her head out of insane jealously and presumably a personality disorder like borderline personality disorder, albeit a very extreme case of it. This is the sort of situation that can end really negatively, with people hiring hitmen or murdering their “rivals” themselves, which means that this is the best case scenario in this situation. When Dr. Phil is your happy ending you know you have issues.
7. Riley the Talent Behind Taylor Swift
This list has quite a few delusional people on it and what makes Riley’s situation so different is that he’s a mix of delusional and narcissistic really unlike most on this list or elsewhere. You see, Riley claims to be the brains behind countless popular songs, like Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake it Off’. Now, you’d think that it’d be easy for anyone in Riley’s life to prove to him that he didn’t in fact have anything to do with something like that as you’d really just have to ask him to prove it, to share one email or text message from Taylor Swift or her people. But clearly for delusions like this to exist it isn’t that simple and that’s what brought Riley’s parents to bring him on Dr. Phil in the first place. Now, because Dr. Phil is rich and famous, he actually knows Taylor Swift (through her mother, who is a close personal friend of his) and despite that fact Riley kept right on with his story, which was important as Dr. Phil was attempting to figure out whether he was delusional or just a pathological liar. After being pushed further he admitted that he was using drugs and that it may have interfered with his thoughts. You Think? Despite that, though, he did say that he still thought that he and Swift were “Soulmates”, something that I’m sure lead to a doubling of Swift’s personal security. Shake it off, indeed.
6. The ‘Sexy Vegan’
There are narcissists and then there’s the ‘Sexy Vegan’. Originally Vegan Hans, the then 33-year-old was jobless and thus relied on his mother for his financial well-being, something that his sister took issue with which is why he was on the show in the first place. It was obvious from the jump that Vegan Hans, who legally changed his name to Sexy Vegan was a textbook narcissist as he was known to wander the streets of Hollywood wearing nothing but a speedo or really short shorts while also carrying a full-length mirror so he could constantly check how great he looked. Beyond that he had his new name, again being Sexy Vegan, tattooed on his forehead and also claimed to be the best looking person in existence. That’s narcissism for you as his beliefs about himself are completely delusional and also are impeding his ability to live a normal life (unless you consider a 33-year-old man in a speedo normal). He did admit that it was taking a toll on his life as he said that he had been arrested about 15-times for “various offences”, something that his mother had to both literally and figuratively bail him out of as you know a 33-year-old man in a speedo wouldn’t last too long even in a holding cell in a California jail. Hopefully after reading the comments on his appearance on Youtube he’ll snap out of it, otherwise he’ll be free to commit crimes against fashion and taste for years to come.
5. Romine Garcia the Anti-Feminist
Unlike most entries on this list, then 19-year-old Romine Garcia was a viral star before her appearance on the Dr. Phil program. You see, Garcia went viral for defending one of the more abhorrent things possible in that she was openly defending domestic assault and abuse, and it wasn’t the female-on-male variety that you might think but rather she was defending both the right for men to hit women as well as that it meant love and not hate or cowardice. Garcia clearly knew a lot about the issue as she was sporting a black-eye in the video, one that she said she received from her boyfriend and that meant that he really loved her as if he was risking jail-time by assaulting her that must mean he really cares about her. Beyond her apperance on the show it was rumored that she died from a drug overdose before her 20th birthday, something that hasn’t been confirmed, although she did receive thousands of Tweets from people sending their condolences to her family (not her boyfriend, though) from both regular people and celebrities like Kylie Jenner. If she didn’t pass away this would just be another weird chapter in her life but if she did then at least she knew that the drug dealer that sold her the drugs must’ve really loved her otherwise why would he risk jail-time by selling her drugs?
4. Patricia and the Cancer Scam
Like many entries on this list, the story of Jessica and Patricia is packaged as a mother/daughter situation. Jessica is the daughter of Patricia and came on the show as she was desperate to find out why her mother was lying to everyone in their lives about having cancer. As we’re sure you can assume it was mostly about money and also about the attention and pity she received. When it came to the money she was setting up fake fundraisers for herself and the worst part about that (yes, worse than lying about cancer for charity) is that she wasn’t using any of the money to improve the lives of her children. See, Jessica also had a younger brother and the home that he lived in with his mother was filthy and disgusting. Even their dog was suffering from an eye infection that was so bad that his eyes were swollen shut. In terms of attention, though, Patricia ended up on local television, stating that she had stage three cancer and that she had survived almost 20 strokes. While she did have brain surgery at one point it wasn’t for brain cancer as she stated, but rather to remove the part of her brain that apparently controlled things like guilt, empathy and/or shame. Not really, she did have brain surgery but it wasn’t for that, really the only thing that would mean she isn’t a complete monster.
3. The Girl “Pregnant with Baby Jesus”
Whenever there’s a show that focuses heavily on people with mental illnesses there’s going to be people that claim that the show is taking advantage of those people and that’s exactly what happened in the case of Haley, the delusional girl who has been on the show more than once. Her first appearance is perhaps her most infamous as she was convinced that she was pregnant, as a virgin, with the son of God. After Dr. Phil both gave and showed her the results of an ultrasound it did nothing to dissuade Haley’s belief that she was still pregnant and that that faux-fetus was Jesus reincarnated? I guess? Other delusional thoughts that she’s presented on the show is that she is the daughter of rapper Eminem, basically because she found a picture in which a young, thin blonde man is holding her as a baby and because Eminem’s daughter shares the same name (albeit a differently spelled version). What could be funny really just comes off as sad as you can tell from her family how much her and their lives have been impacted by her delusions as you can tell that she really believes what she’s saying which is only going to get more and more difficult as she ages and without proper medication and therapy.
2. Mirianne, The Would-Be Mother of a Stripper
The story of Mirianne is a strange and sad one, perhaps the strangest and saddest the Dr. Phil show has ever seen (which is saying a lot). Everything seemed to be going okay in the life of this family, as the mother and father were still married and their 17-year-old daughter was doing well in school. However, once Mirianne learned that her husband went to a strip club or two FIFTEEN YEARS in the past (which was about 13 years into their 26 year long marriage) something in her brain broke. She became obsessed by the idea of it, obsessing over not only the way she looked but also the way that her daughter, then 16 or 17, looked and acted as well. Convinced that her daughter had to look like a stripper to get a man, she decided to pay for her daughter to receive breast implants, a lower back tattoo, all sorts of expensive make up and haircuts while also basically telling her daughter, verbatim, that she needs to “Be a whore” in order to keep a man. Her reasoning is that if her daughter isn’t completely sexually available that any man she is with will end up going elsewhere, which is the complete opposite of what you should teach a young, impressionable girl about her values and worth. While some say that the daughter is and was old enough to refuse the multiple breast implants her mother paid for, everyone is insecure in their teens and if they have a parent putting things like that in their head it’s a recipe for disaster especially when they’re forgoing an education in the process. While Danielle Bregoli gets the most credit as the craziest mother/daughter guest spot on Dr. Phil, this one is definitely up there in that regard as well.
1. Danielle Bregoli
There may be no better example of someone spinning 15-minutes of fame into a career (or that our society is definitely hit rock bottom) than Danielle “Cash Me Outside” Bregoli, a teenager who originally appeared on Dr. Phil’s show thanks to her terrible treatment of her mother. The troubled teen, who also goes by the name Bhad Bhabie, originally appeared on Dr. Phil in September of 2016 for a segment titled “I want to give up my car-stealing, knife-wielding, twerking 13-year-old daughter who tried to frame me for a crime”, talk about a mouthful. After the audience started laughing at her responded with her now legendary catch phrase “Cash me outside, how ’bout dah?”. The episode and the catchphrase took off online and Bregoli reappeared on the show in February of 2017 to discuss her life since her first appearance (and without the studio audience). The phrase was used in the chorus of a rap song by DJ Suede the Remix God, which was her first entrance into the Billboard Hot 100. That showed her that she may have a future as a rapper and after some initial reticence she recorded a few songs and released her first single; titled “These Heaux” in August of 2017. Reaching number 77 on the Hot 100 charts, making Bregoli the youngest female rapper to ever chart on the Billboard. While she has attempted to move beyond her appearance on the show, she will forever be tied to her appearance on Dr. Phil as his biggest and “best” guest ever.