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Hey, Robert here. It's been like two months since I had LASIK and I'm still seeing 2020. All I had to do was go in for a consultation, then go in for a maybe 10 minute procedure and then my eyes have been great ever since. You know, I healed up wonderfully. It was very simple, couldn't have been a better experience. So if you want to explore LASIK plus I can't recommend it enough. They have over 20 years experience in the industry and they performed more than two million treatments right now if you want to try getting LASIK plus you can get $1000 off of your surgery when you're treated in September, that's $500. Of per eye, just visitmylasikoffer.com to schedule your free consultation. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried true crime. And if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's breaker handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. In the 1980s and 90s, a psychopath terrorized the country of Belgium. A serial killer and kidnapper was abducting children in the bright light of day. From Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio, this is La Monstra, a story of abomination and conspiracy. The story about the man who simply become known as. Lamaster. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, before we get into the episode, I wanted to talk about a fundraiser we're doing now. Last year, y'all funded basically the entirety of the Portland Diaper Bank, which provides free diapers to people who are in, you know, financial crisis and whatnot. We're doing that fundraiser again. We're trying to raise $20,000 to fund the Portland Diaper Bank for the year. If you want to donate some cash to them, you can go to go fund me diaper need. And COVID-19 response? If you just Google, go fund me diaper need and COVID-19 response, it should take you to the fundraiser. You can also find my pinned tweet on my Twitter at I write. OK, we'll take you right there. So diaper need and COVID-19 response on GoFundMe. Thank you all so much. **** you. That's the introduction. Just just **** you. People who listen and give us an income. Allow us. Nice to see you too. Comfortable life. Not you, Jamie, just the audience. Just just the people who support us with their ears insulting. Just out the gate. **** him. That's right. What are you gonna do about it? You know, listen to another podcast like there are other podcasts. Like you have other options. Like there's a flooded marketplace of things exactly like what I do that you could just turn to? Ha, I don't think so. And don't investigate otherwise. No, please don't search podcasts on Spotify. I feel like what you just said all could have come out of Doctor Phil's mouth at one point, the second the cameras turned out for his show. Well, Jamie, the orca is out of the tank because that is the subject of today's episode. And also your Jamie Loftus my guest on the show that this is which is behind the ********. Yes, it is. It is behind the ********. And and I'm. I'm here. I'm mainly here to bring the doctor Phil ASMR videos this week. Excited is the wrong word. Dreading. Dreading is the right word. I'm dreading that, Jamie, you're gonna either really love them or really hate them, and I can't figure out which it's gonna be. I I can't imagine loving them because they involve Doctor Phil, and I think he's gonna love them, you know? It's one of those things. Take we, we just did the Doctor Oz episodes, and Doctor Oz also bad. Obviously, he was on this show, but you have to respect him because he is a a brilliant doctor. Like he's a man who, for all of the harm he's done by spreading pseudoscience, has performed. 5000 Successful open heart surgeries, which is an achievement, you know it, and has patented a bunch of useful medical devices and stuff. He's he's a person who's made like bafflingly selfish decisions that I don't respect. But as a person I have to have some level of respect for the things that he has achieved because he's impressive. Doctor Phil is just a ***** ** ****. Doctor Phil is just straight up trash. We were, we were talking about this off Mike there. There was some doctor Drew drama in Los Angeles. This week that actually like for once, ended well and online bullying person like persevered and Doctor Drew was like nominated to the Los Angeles Homeless Services of Authority. Like board and what is OK, I don't know. Doctor Drew, what is what is Doctor Drew do? I'm assuming he's a nonsense doctor like all of the other doctors we talk about. He may be technically a doctor, I'm not totally sure, but I think he's a radio doctor. Ohh, that's the best. He also mediates the reunions of Teen Mom and Teen Mom 2 and 16 and pregnant, and causes a damage to lots and lots of young minds. All the time. He technically does have. He is a a doctor. I don't know if he's currently licensed, but I know him from VH1 in like Middle School where he had to rehab, so drew sex rehab with Doctor, Drew celebrity rehab presents, sober house. And that sounds like my nightmare, like that sounds, that sounds like the hell that I would go to is sober house. Oh no. We have shortened by description and said he's Adam Corolla's best friend, which is also true. Which is like really? Ohh yeah no yeah. He hosted like a famous radio show called Loveline Forever and Adam Corolla was also on the show and they're they're close. And so yeah, he was nominated to serve on the Homeless Authority board and it took it only took about a day where like activists just bullied him into bully people into. Drawing the nomination pretty quickly, and he had a few spicy little comments about it. He was like, I can't like, he basically was like, these online bullies are trying to cancel me for, for not being a good doctor and irrelevant for this job. So, you know, sometimes bad doctor's fault, I like, I love to see it. Well, that's fascinating. I'm so happy to have learned about Doctor Drew, but today we're talking about Doctor Phil. And it's it's time to get in, get into the it's time to have us a film gasm. OK, I'm a McGraw ASM. I'm a grasm McGraw ASM. I'm McGraw gasm, yeah. So Phillip Calvin McGraw was born on September 1st, 1950 in Vinita OK, about four hours from where I grew up. His father was Joseph and his mother was Anne. Geraldine, or Jerry is what she preferred to go by. He had two older sisters and one younger sister. When he was a kid, his father moved the family down to the oil fields of North Texas, which are about as unpleasant to place as I've ever encountered on this earth. Not a not a good place to just exist you don't wanna, as a general rule. Stay away from oil fields. UM, not nice places. So his, his, his. Kind of like Southern desolation is is Phil Mcgraw's early childhood, which you know, I I can tell you from experience what that does to a kid, and it it it it makes you either a a washout or ambitious and angry one of the two. Wind up an alcoholic working on an oil Derrick, or you do everything possible to escape the the, the desolate S anyway, Phil's gonna take that second one I like. Yeah. Yeah. I have strong feelings about that part of Texas and that part of Oklahoma. Phil was a precocious child, and his parents seem to agree that he basically raised himself. He expressed a hunger for money from a young age, and he was coddled. His mother thought he could do no wrong. Young Phil was the center of attention. For everyone but his father, who was himself obsessed with work, the elder McGraw would end up moving the family half a dozen times for the sake of his career. By age 11, Phil was spending summers driving a freight truck owned by his grandfather in Munday, TX. By age 12, he was flying planes illegally without a license. He traveled with. Yeah, Oh my God, OK. I mean, the the driving. Driving at age 11. Not as uncommon as you might think in certain rural parts of the world. Still a bit young. Driving a freight truck is a bit is a bit odd at age 11 is a shark jump and then unlike driving his plane unlicensed Violet at age 12. Yeah. Honestly if I I looked at Doctor Phil Young because sometimes you it's shocking and you're like, whoa, doctor Phil used to be hot. Not the case here, but there's a there's a there's a picture of him as a kid and now I'm like, that does look like a kid that would steal a plane. Yeah. It just does. It's he's not even stealing a plane. His. Dad needs to fly to these desolate airstrips in the middle of nowhere to deliver oil field equipment, and he fill goes with him and flies the plane sometimes. My guess is that his dad is just like I'm taking a nap. You're flying this oil field equipment across Texas. I trust you lay on the ******* OK, dad ohk while Doctor Phil looks like adult Chris Cuomo. Oh, I see it, I see it. OK. It's it's honestly shocking that he was not a bald baby. If someone wants to make a comic book doctor Phil Child pilot is pretty decent premise. There's I've I've heard worse. So, yeah, this is how Phil spends his childhood, up until the point when his dad Joe turned 40 and decided, apropos of nothing, that he was going to abandon his family and become a psychologist. Hold on. We we truly don't have more info than that. I have not found more info than that. His dad's like, I'm gonna become a psychologist. You guys can keep doing your thing, you know? Like that's basically how it's set. And so Joe leaves his wife and three daughters behind. I think they stay in Texas, and he brings Phil with him to Kansas, where the two started a new life together. I don't like this. The closeness of father and son here, it sounds like, why is it I hate? Because every time. We go over stories like this. You're like, it can't be daddy issues, everything can't be just Daddy issue, but then but then it always is. Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things that's interesting to me is like the the the ways in which Doctor Phil and I early background are similar and then diverge. And this is a big divergent point because when I was a kid, my dad left for like a couple of years to work somewhere else, but it was because we had no money. We were like the edge of bankruptcy and the only job he could get was in New York. Putting on a friend's couch and, like, working at a radio station so he could send back money to us. So he wasn't like. And like, I didn't go with him. He, like, had to go alone to New York to support the family and stuff. But it it is this weird. Grew up in the same area, moved around a bunch when we were little. Our dad leaves, you know? But in Phil's case, he goes with his dad. And they just abandoned all the women, right? Right, right. Like Doctor Phil's dad is like, you're my wife now. It's like this, this. You're my wife now, boy. My wife. Pilot. Play the blame, bill. You're my wife now. Doctor Phil. Child. Wife, pilot. The pitch is getting better and better and better. It's going to be sold by the end of the episode. I actually just got an e-mail from Netflix and it's a check for $112 million. So we are now contractually obligated to make this show. Jamie. Rather do that more than anything else, that would be a dream. Let's leave this life behind. OK so we're abandoning podcast and do that to do Doctor Phil Child Wife pilot. Yes I think that would put a lot of positivity back into the world so so they just they just bail and it's not for financial reasons I mean it is they're they're poor as ****. His dad wants to go to school and is like, I can't take care of this family anymore. Bye. Is is what it the way it's been described in the articles I've read now maybe Doctor Phil could could give us a more detailed story, but I have not run across it yet. OK. Yeah, most of the info I have on his childhood comes from a Dallas Observer article, and they explained the whole abandoning of Phil's mom and sisters as a financial move. OK, Phil apparently told the Dallas Observer. Quote, there just wasn't enough money to do otherwise, so we could only feed two members of this family. So, girls, you're on your own. Phil and I are going to Kansas Hill, OK? Yeah, extremely, very, very sounds like a really healthy family dynamic so far. You get the feeling he grew up in a healthy environment. That's true. Healthy families are all alike. They allow 12 year olds to fly planes. That's how the famous quote goes. That's that's how Anna Karenina starts. I love that book so much. And it turns out that's the thesis statement of the whole thing. How did you just pronounce that, Robert? I don't know. Anna. Karina, what is it? Yeah, I wasn't there. I honestly, I think that it had Anna Karenina been a child pilot, maybe she wouldn't have gotten crushed by that train. No, no. And she could have been doctor Phil's dad's child wife. I actually don't know what happens in that, but I pretended to read it when I was like 11. I just stared at every page really hard over the course of months, per the results of a 2006 court case. I am not allowed to read Russian literature. So. In more recent post fame interviews Doctor Phil claims those early days with his father were a humbling experience. Quote we were so poor we couldn't even pay attention, which is I don't I I think as less as true statement. Not that I'm saying they weren't poor. I think he just said that because he knows it was a pithy thing and he makes his whole living off of like saying stupid doctor Phil with witticisms he couldn't even. And I've I've heard that 1000 times like I have heard 1000 different people say. Explain their their origins that way. So I don't know. **** you doctor. Phil be original. The moms absolutely lose it. I bet it does. I absolutely bet it makes the moms lose it. I mean someone doctor Phil quips they love it. Someone on Reddit during the Doctor Oz episode. You know, I noted a couple of times that his his audience and the people that he makes money off of his like middle-aged moms. And that that's a great business because they have all the money or at least control all the money like middle-aged moms are are one of the most. Profitable demographics to get in your corner in the entire world, right. And someone was like that you're being like unfairly negative towards middle-aged moms is like, it's just a statement of fact. Like, look in the audience of a doctor Oz show. Like, it's not 16 to 30 year olds like men. It's it's it's a bunch of moms. Like my mom loved doctor Oz. It's that that's who his audience is. It's not like a negative statement. My mom loves doctor Phil. No. Yeah, yeah. I don't think that that's a negative no state. So if anyone's hearing. And then it's not like what they're intending to say. It's just who the audience is. Yeah, the target audience. Yeah. It's like saying like, min 18 to 35, listen to Joe Rogan. That's not like I'm not even, it is negative to listen to Joe Rogan, but I'm not being negative when I say that. I'm just accurately describing his audience. Yes. Right. Yeah. **** you. So, Rogan. Sure, I, as someone who was raised by Doctor Phil moms, I I am fully. And it's like, not I. But I mean, it is the primary demographic. Yeah, at least at the peak. I don't know who's watching Doctor Phil. Now, no matter your demographic, there's a grifter for you. Look, I've been honest about the fact that there was a period of time in my life when I liked John McAfee before I knew about, you know, the murder and the rape and stuff, right? Like, we all we're we all have a grifter we're vulnerable to. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You just need to acknowledge it. And in the case of middle-aged suburban moms, it's doctor Phil and doctor Oz. Mine was, I think, the grifter. That really that got me was Lou Pearlman, who made all the boy bands that made me more dangerous. Oh my God, I mean one of my, not my favorite, but one of the most legendary, incredible, absolutely amazing person. Like Mr Blunt himself. No, without any sort of joking, like a genius. Just just has a genius. In terms of knowing exactly what a specific age group of people want, right, it doesn't mean that we were like not smart, but we were no, clearly targeted by by yes. Yeah. Yeah. We all have a thing where we're vulnerable to anyway, we're, we're getting off topic, which is fine because it pads the runtime and that's what I do as a grifter is I pan the runtime in order to make more money off of you. ******* sorry, OK? Ohh, shameful. So yeah, the details that Doctor Phil gives about his childhood, like he he gives that kind of pithy. We were so poor we couldn't even pay attention quote. But in the interview with Dallas Observer, the details he actually gives make it seem like the issue for Phil was less a matter of crushing poverty. Like I think they were kind of poor, but I think they were like my kind of poor, like, which was not crushing poverty, it was not your malnourished. It's just there's no money for anything but the basics, you know? But the basics are covered. Breaking even. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you're not like you. You're not like in in in absolute destitution, you know, like, not to exaggerate it, but like, you're poor. Like, that's kind of what I think is is is really happening. And part of why I think that is because his real complaint about that time in his life is that he couldn't buy any cool **** quote. OK from the Dallas observer. It didn't help that he was fiercely competitive, he says, and he lacked the clothes and the car to compete for girls. So I think that's more the big thing for him. Right. Like, OK, you're not that poor. You just don't have enough money to impress girls with possessions. Right. OK. Yeah. I I I get that level of poverty. Yes. Yeah. I think most of us had more or less that level of poverty where, like, yeah, especially like, I I I was like one of the poorer kids in a school that was not poor. There were kids in my school who drove BMW's and, like, I had a beat to **** Ford Taurus. I'm not complaining. Like, I had a Ford Taurus. Like, I'm not complaining. I had a car. But, like, you see that, you see the kids who's like, parents are rich and you're like, oh **** I feel so poor because they have, like, a brand new jagwire that that's, I think, the kind of poor he is. Yeah. Or or school is like, the kid with the Ford Taurus was like, Oh my God, he has a car. What a cool boy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was just for my senior year, but yes, I did. I did eventually get a car. So thankfully, the young doctor Phil was huge, quickly crossing 6 feet. He's a massive man, if you've ever, like, seen him next to normal. Wise people, he's a very large person. I forget that. But yes, yeah, he is he like 6-4. He's like, he's yeah, he's like an inch or two taller than me and I think quite a bit broader, like he's a big ************. But but most of that's mustache, Robert. Most of that, a lot of it's mustache now. But when he was younger, he was in good shape and he was, he was very like muscular. And as a result of how big and strong he was, he was a shoe in for the high school football team. Wow. He later recalled, quote, I was filled the jock and that was my currency. And by currency he means that's how he got girls. Right. He didn't have the car. He didn't have, but he was able to like, get girls because he had, you know, he was, he was on the football team. He was tall. He was tall. He was. And he was apparently quite good at football. In Phil. Senior year, his father moved to Wichita Falls to start his psychology practice. Not yet a doctor, Phil spent his entire senior year living alone. He didn't go with his dad. This time he supported himself and he played football because he he was like he he there was a period of time where he might have made it into the NFL, so he didn't want to leave his high school and like, disrupt that. Uh, he said, quote it wasn't what you were supposed to do, but I was pretty independent. Interesting. College Scouts had started eyeing him pretty early on and he had, it seems like he had a real chance of getting at least picked to play college ball. He did get picked to play college ball. His dad had gone to the University of Tulsa on a football scholarship and in short order, Phil was picked by scouts for the same college. So he gets a college scholarship to the University of Tulsa. He becomes the captain of the freshman football team, and he says he was very good. A lot of. Article she'll say we're very good. We're gonna talk about this in a little bit because his team at least was **** like, like not just not just a bad, not just like not good in the year but like one of the all time least successful college football teams in the history of college football. No. Yeah. Trying to think of other there's that is like such a like celebrity that grows to be evil. I feel like that is a pattern of like I I could have been a big sport ball. That was his Hitler's art school, right? Yeah. Right, right, right. Like, and you just know that's parties. He doesn't let people forget it. Like, yeah, I'm looking up celebrities who played high school sports. Matthew McConaughey. It just seems like not making it big in college sports campus. Potentially a villainous origin story. I mean, I never had any. I was on the high school. I did like, sorry, I did one year of football in junior high. I never had any chance of of of going pro and I didn't like football. There was a period of time where I might have been able to like, do, do, do well at fencing. I did. I was in like a special. I was pretty, I was pretty good at fencing at pay. But no, I I got bored eventually. I love that for you. I could see that for you. Yeah. I mean, take it back up if you're really tall. It helps. Yeah. But never, like, never, never at the college level or anything. So I I ran track in junior high, but then I threw up one time and I quit permanently. And to this day, I do not run. I was captain of the varsity basketball team, and I'm really, really short. Holy ****. I had so, so I'm the most athletic of our bunch. Sophie is the most successful athlete in in in this call. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah, send pics. Ohh there are that's great. Are pigs, Jamie, I will personally send them to you. You know I will say having watched the video of that guy shot putting a ******* uh bobcat I I think that should be an Olympic sport amazing thing I've seen in such a long that was that was that you know what that was is the greatest example of like quality husbanding that I think I've seen on Twitter like ohh my that's that's that's a that's a you did you did good man. That's exactly what you're supposed to do like that's that's that's wholesome masculinity right there is shot putting. The Wildcat away from your wife? Wait, that's So what a hero. Well, and it's also, you know, it's not going to do any damage to the cat. Now, he did get out his gun to shoot the cat, but it charged back at the family. And I feel at that point, the cat had chosen violence. You know, he gave he gave the animal a chance to end the interaction. Thank you for that. That fine forensic analysis. That's that's my that's my opinion on the by now weeks old video of a guy hooking a bobcat across the yard. To be fair, he feels violent. Yeah, the cat shows. Silence. That's my that's my end statement here. So yeah. Anyway, Doctor Phil, a lot of interviews, you'll see. He was very, very good. Could have, maybe could have gone pro. I don't know how accurate that is. I'm not great at football, but I found it incredible analysis on the sports website Grantland about a game that he played in that his freshman football team played in, that is like one of the most famous games in college ball history because of how badly his team did. Yeah, Grantland calls it one of the craziest games in NCAA history. For starters, the bulk of Phil's team were like actively dying of the flu while they played. Quote an especially virulent strain of flu had been cavorting through the Tulsa Athletic dorm, somehow overcoming the formidable sanitary standard those 3 words imply. In 15 of Tulsa's 22 starters were shivering, feverish wrecks. They tried to act energetic, but they were so weak, Tulsa coach Glenn Dobbs remembered in 1985. My sons, Glenda, 3rd and John, were on the team. Their eyes were glazed with fever. The team, the team Doctor pleaded with the coach to call off the game, but Dobbs, a former Tulsa star who, because the world just does whatever it wants, had been an icon for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League, refused to surrender. I just never liked backing out, he said afterward. Tulsa had two defensive lineman who were well enough enough to travel. One of them passed out before the coin flip. So escape is a ******* disaster. I'm gonna get I love this **** so much. It's so good. Finally a sports movie for me, yeah. Shooting to death. Also, someone named Glenn the third is involved. Like just the funniest ******* thing passing out before the game starts. Ohh, that is just, and kudos to the Grantland writer. It's very entertaining article. Grantland. I miss Grantland, yeah, yeah. By the end of the first quarter, Phil's team was down 14 to 0, which is a significant like they're getting it's not a great start to a game, but it's not insurmountable. However, by the end of the game they were down by a record-breaking 100 points. 6 Ohda Jesus did still get any of the points? No, I don't believe so. Not at all. I think it's one of the greatest *** kickings in college ball history. Wow. Like in the entire history of the sport. Like Doctor Phil's team got their ***** beat. Almost the worst way to lose Phil? Yeah, it's like a famously a famous *** kicking. It does like several rounds of like going back to being sad and then going back to being funny and then going back to being sad and then going and. Finally landing on being the funniest **** I've ever. It's it's incredibly funny. So Doctor Phil brags about this great game today, saying that it and that football in general helped awaken in him and interest in psychology by teaching him that people with advantages don't always win. That said, the author of that Grantland article takes pains to point out that there is actually no evidence whatsoever that Phil played in this game, and the fact that do exist from this time make it seem kind of unlikely. I don't know how to like it was far enough back that there's not any comprehensive. Get to know for sure, really. But the doubt thrown onto it by this investigation might mean that as a grown *** multimillionaire doctor, Phil lied to David Letterman about playing in one of the worst *** kickings in sports history, and I have no idea what this says about him. Like, I don't even know how to analyze that. There's so many levels there. Because, like, if he did play in it, you're like, oh, what a yeah, OK, that's fun. Yeah, you like, I can see, like if I was, if I if I played in, if I partook in a famous. Ask kicking. In a sports history, I would brag about that as an adult. It would be funny, you know? You get enough distance from it, sure. Lying about it, though, lying about it is baffling. Why is this? That's like a game of 4D chess I can barely conceive. Yeah, I have no idea what's going on with the with Doctor Phil, but, and for the most part, I do know what's going on with him. This is just baffling to me because he's clearly a narcissist. It's very strange as a narcissist to lie about this, you know? To lie about one of the greatest failure, yeah, to just to lie about just getting just like fame historically wrecked. Anything for clout, baby. Anything for me. And Speaking of clout, you know who has all of my clout? Jamie? Does that happen to be a product or maybe even a service? It is the products and services that support this podcast. I sacrifice all of my clout to them, like members of the ancient cult of the old ones. Sacrifice virgin babies to Nyarlathotep. The crawling chaos. Much like that. Yeah, here's some ads for **** pills. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. 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Hey, it's Rick Schwartz, one of your hosts for San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we sit down with Doctor Jane Goodall to hear her inspiring thoughts on how we can create a better future for humans, animals and the environment. Anything, particularly young children out into nature so that they can experience it and take time off from this virtual world of being always on your cell phones and so on. And get the feel of nature so that you come to be fascinated, then you come to want to understand it, and then you come to love it, and at that point you want to protect it. And then we'll come to the sort of healthy world that I envision as a good future for us. And the rest of life on this planet. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, we're back. Ohh, we're back. We're back. We're shipping the old gods. I don't know, might deliver up some of my bodily fluids to a shaggoth later. Who knows? Who knows? We're talking about Doctor Phil. Anything could happen. Hmm. So anyways, after this, at some point, I don't know the exact year, but at some point pretty soon after this disastrous game, because Phil was definitely on the team. At some point after this, Phil had another sports disaster. He went in to tackle a running back and he got hit really hard. And I don't mean just like, you know, sprain something. I mean, he woke up blind like, Oh my God, the kind of head injury where when you come to your eyes don't work, which is I don't medically speaking. Bad loud. No, it shouldn't be allowed carry it. Absolutely. Like, I don't know, I think adults should. I think if you're like 22 and older, you should be allowed to play football. But certainly 18 year olds should not be it, nor should they be allowed to join the military, by the way. Yeah, yeah, sure. So he's still. Yeah, it was the head injury was bad enough. His eyesight came back, obviously, but it was a serious head injury and it ended. Ended. There was no chance of him continuing his career after that, right? Like, it's one of those things, like you don't get to ever play football again because you get hit in the head one more time, that might be ******* it for you, you know? Right. Once his eyesight, yeah. And he still suffers like he's there's after effects of this today, like, it's it's a A lifelong injury. He got really messed up. Wow. It's a bad thing to do. Yeah, yeah, it's bad. Once his sight came back, Phil returned to Wichita Falls to heal and to plot his next move. He decided to put his college education on hold now that he couldn't do a football scholarship. And he decided, you know the thing to do now. I'm not gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna think about college later. I'm gonna make some money now, right? Which is not an unreasonable call to make in the situation. And I'm gonna quote from a write up in the Dallas Observer. He worked at a health club selling memberships and wound up owning a partnership interest in that club and a half dozen. Others, that was typical of the way he did things, says Scott Madsen, who went into the building business with his future brother-in-law. He is the smartest guy I ever met. A born leader even at a young age, he had the insight to figure out how things work. Others took a more damnable view of his business practices. I didn't know of anyone who had a business deal with Phil at the time who felt they came out on top, says David Dickinson, a former friend of Mcgraw's from Wichita Falls. It's like playing golf from someone who moves the ball around all the time. So how young is he when he gets into business and he's like maybe 20 at the most, like 19 or 20 and very quickly he's a partner, becomes a part owner in the Sports Club he's working at, becomes part owner in like a half dozen other clubs like he's so he doesn't have. He doesn't have a degree yet of any kind. No, but he's clearly very good at. Is that specifically the thing that Phil is objectively one of the best people in the world at is negotiating? Yeah, like he is a terrifying negotiator. I I haven't run into any disagreement about that. He's got all the grift. He's got all the like the strong straight grifters, yeah. Yeah. And he's he's very good at it at negotiating in a legal manner, which is a separate skill just from grifting, you know. And it's honestly like the best kind of grifting, cause you can't get in trouble for that ****. Yeah. Yeah. If he's willing to go into this game that young that's so his brain he's just he's wired for it, you know or at least maybe with the foot poetry, scrambled his wires and made him wired for it. I don't know. Here's reality is stressing me out, OK? Yeah, he's triggering my my fight or flight response. This is a good feeling. Yeah. That's how Doctor Phil works. He really, really triggers a lot of a lot of responses. Now, the article notes that when you interview that Dallas Observer article notes that when you interview a bunch of people who have known Doctor Phil over the course of decades, you tend to get two very different pictures of the man. One, from the people who like him, is of an incredibly gifted expert in practical psychology who has a passion for helping people. And the other picture you get of Doctor Phil is a quote, charismatic opportunist who achieved. Great things by betraying the people closest to him in order to make a quick buck. One of these spurned former friends is Eldon Buck, who claimed to the Observer. I put Phil in a couple of oil field deals and everyone pays me but him. Phil is a smart, smart, smart *** ** * *****. But he's only out for one thing, and that's Phil. Now, Phil denies all of this, but it is worth noting, as we've just heard, that Buck is not the only person with allegations like this against him. He's not even just one of two, but we're gonna get to that story in due time. So he's also involved in in oil fields down the line in anything that'll make him money like this is like kind of all happening over a period of a couple of years. He's just, he starts making money and he immediately reinvests. That's money. He's in a bunch of businesses. You know, I have a I have a good, a very, very close friend who has that kind of. Right. Who's just always spinning off their money into one business or another. And I don't know how they do it, but they just are able to keep track of like the fact that, like I've, I've got an investment in this business and through that business I have an investment in this business and an interest in these other three businesses. And those give me an interest in this. And like, this is how all of that, like, I don't, I don't understand it, but like it's kind of like being an engineer. You know, some people have the kind of brain where you can open up like a ******* HVAC system or or like the flight control system. An airplane and know what all of the little cords and all of the lights go and do and how to how to how to work all of that. Some people have a brain that allows them to just business. You know I respect people who use it for good, but holy **** what an exhausting yeah sounding it it it sounds like a nightmare. I keep all of my money in a pile and I I will never have investments like I will never like I keep it in a bank, but like I have no I have no investments and never will because the idea of. Investing money is terrifying to me and makes me want to huddle around a fire with a spear and stab outsiders. I spent my all my savings on Dilbert NFT's. Well, that's gonna that's gonna appreciate. You know, Jay made good feeling. It's the only thing they're not making anymore of. Yeah, that's a real thing. They that the, you know, the Tashi Dilbert guy made Dilbert NFT's, and the only difference from a regular Dilbert is that he says. In this one? Oh ****. Too much money. Anyways. I would pay good money for a dobert NFT where he admits responsibility for the Oklahoma City bombing. Ohhh my God, I think that would be a good NFT. If you're listening Scott Adams. I'll invest in that one. Dilbert. Dilbert admits to making a 6000 pound fertilizer bomb and parking it out in front of the Murrah Building. That's the NFT I want. I can guarantee that Cathy Guisewite, creator of Kathy Comics, does not know nor care. NAFTA is. And that's why she is. She is really she she's my strength in this world. Stan? Kathy. Stan? Kathy? Stan? Kathy. You know who else? I Stan. Jamie. No one that was, like, it's not time for an ad pilot. It's so loves to do the, like, fake ad thing, and then he thinks I can't help but, like, I can't stop myself. He's just so good at it. I mean, you know who I actually stand, who I have an unreasonable a affection for and can't be convinced otherwise. No, no, I think I I think I have a reasonable love of Levar Burton, as everyone does. Right. It's like a kappy Barra, you know? It's like loving a kappy Barra. Like it's Levar Burton, of course. No. Verner Herzog. Herzog is my. By unreasonable love, Robert, I would love you should start making Verner Hertzog fancams. I don't know what that means, Jamie. I'm going to make one of you, and you're going to be horrified if they're. I wonder if Robert Fancams exists. Listeners, what the **** is a fancam? How do I describe fancamp? It's usually like it's it's a short video made on an app. I don't know what the app is, but it's just a series of clips of you and they have, they put a glittery filter over it and there's like the cute song on in the background. I don't think there's a lot of video of me where like you can actually see me. So that might be hard to do. Robert, you would you would absolutely hate it, my friend. I know I would. There's enough video footage of you for a fan Cam. You need like 3 clips. While all all I'm interested of is a fan Cam of Werner Herzog diving into a bunch of cactuses because he promised a group of little people that if they made it through the filming of a movie without injury, he would horribly hurt himself by diving into a bed of saguaros from 12 feet up. Is that true? Yeah, he absolutely did it. And they begged him not to. They were like, please don't do this. Like, we don't want you to hurt yourself. And he said I made a promise, and if I don't fulfill my promise, there's no reason for me to be alive. And then he dove into a pile of cactuses because he's a ******* lunatic. And I love him so much. Wow. OK, very. Ohh. Verner Herzog. Watch. Aguirre, the wrath of God. So Doctor Phil Robert. Doctor Phil? Yeah. Sorry, we're off off the topic a little bit. So after three years as a business slash con man, Phil McGraw decided to return to the education system to study psychology. He started off at Midwestern University in Wichita Falls, where his father had gone and then transferred to the University of North Texas, which is where the people who gave me huge amounts of drugs. Went to school. I don't think Phil spent his time half a mile outside of campus Downing 100 milligrams of two CI and 15 to 20 milligrams of five MOD 5, MEO, MPT, and vaporizing DMT. Which is probably why he graduated UNT with a PhD while my friends and I all dropped out of college to go, you know, do stupid ****. Anyway, yeah, Doctor Phil's not ******* punk enough. No, he's not. In his recollection, Phil both hated and excelled at college, he later recalled. I almost quit every day. The faculty just jacked with you all the time. I remember telling one professor either kick me out or get off my ***. He did succeed in impressing other professors though. His mentor at UNT was Doctor G Frank Lawless, who still considers Doctor Phil quote by far the most brilliant psychologist I ever worked with. Which is meaningful praise. But also we are talking UNT here. You know, we're not talking like one of the famous psychology schools in in the country. So not, not not a nothing. Compliment, but not like a doctor. Not like people saying Doctor Oz is the best heart surgeon ever. You know, because that ************ is working at Columbia, right? They know from heart surgery, right? OK, so I don't know. I'm not not throwing shade at Frank Lawless. I'm just saying I don't think Doctor Phil is the most brilliant psychologist ever to exist. I haven't. I haven't gotten past the fact that Frank Wallace sounds like a made-up person. That sounds like a cartoon character. I am assuming He's's father. So McGraw got his doctorate in 1979 and returned to Wichita Falls for reasons that are impossible to explain any any person who returns to Kansas. I just don't, I don't understand. He started a business partnership with his dad and together the two veered their practice towards treating the mental ailments of the rich and socially prominent, circulating among country clubs Decatur to doctors, lawyers, bankers and their wives. One of doctor films, Phil's friends later claimed, quote, Phil moved right into the money circles if there wasn't a buck in it. He wasn't much interested. So, you know, that's that's the, that's the the field he gets into is is dealing with like rich people who are neurotic or whatever. OK, so he comes to being a charlatan early. Yeah. I mean, you know, at this point, again, if you're grifting rich people, I don't care. Yeah, sometimes I might find it interesting for an off week, but I don't consider that evil behavior, right. They have too much money, whatever. He specialized in cognitive behavioral therapy, which fill at least claimed. Is a cause and effect therapy that treated thoughts and behavior the same quote? People would come in and say I had a hard childhood, therefore I am not doing well as an adult. A Freudian would say, let's work through your childhood. I would say that's fine, but right now you are an adult. You have a choice to stop yelling at your kids. I've done, I've done CBT. Yeah, that's not that doesn't sound bad, right? Like that is a reasonable take, which is like, OK, it's fine to like, you know, work through a difficult childhood, but you can't be ****** to your kids just because you had a bad childhood. Reasonable state. That doesn't excuse current bad behavior. Perfectly valid statement, absolutely. Sure. And this kind of no nonsense approach was very popular with some of his clients. I I can see how it would have been useful in a number of cases, but Doctor Phil himself admits that he was, quote, probably the worst marital therapist in the history of the world. I was teaching what they taught me, but I was real impatient. Everybody was getting divorced the way he relates it. Realizing the shortcomings of his education convinced Phil to seek out less traditional ways to practice his profession and to market it. And I should note. There is an aside that during this. Doctor Phil got married and was briefly with a woman before cheating on her repeatedly and then leaving her. Ohh yeah, so. Anyway, well, maybe he should have been a little more patient. Maybe he should have taken some of his own medicine. Yeah, I mean, he he does. I mean, to be fair, he admits he was a bad marriage therapist, so I can't call him, like a hypocrite. If you're saying I was a I I was a ****** husband and a ****** marriage therapist. That all scared, right? You know, like. That's I yeah. He's being honest here, so we won't belabor the point. OK. Yeah. He started holding pain clinics, weight loss clinics and executive giving executive recruiting advice and even expert legal testimony for court cases. He was like an expert witness. Yeah. And this is like for court cases, right? Like, you need someone to come and, you know, you have, like, somebody who's claiming like, oh, you know, I can't be held responsible for this because I'm I, you know, like mentally ill or whatever. Like, you know, not guilty by reason of insanity. He comes in and he's like, yes, that's valid or no, that's not valid, depending on who pays him, you know? So just a general mental health professional. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's the kind that we just, we just finished the shovin trail, you know, we had all these kind of use of force experts. There's a bunch of people in different fields whose main job is to take that that expertise in another field and testify about it in court because it's relevant, right. You have, like, engineering specialists who are like, I'm gonna go testify. About this bridge that collapsed to either defend the people who made it or explain how irresponsible they were. Whatever. Like, that's a whole. Yeah, there's a whole industry doctor. Phil gets into the providing expert in that industry. There's a ******** of you can get real *** **** rich doing that. Yeah, well, yeah, especially if you're willing to lie about. Oh yeah. Of expertise. Yeah. And by the way, lawyers listening. I will testify as an expert witness on literally anything as a certified Reverend Dr in the state of New Jersey. My purview is wide. So you know what? 12 grand an hour? The podcast is just gonna disappear one day and it's instant. I'm. I'm ******* done. You know, like, the **** **** this podcast I'm gonna go lie Underoath about. I don't know, whatever. Anyway, Doctor Phil started. Yeah, holding, you know. So he started. He gets into like, the whole the business of if I really wanna make money at scale as a psychologist, having individual, even if they're rich individual clients isn't the thing to do. I'm going to do a bunch of clinics on, like, dealing with pain, dealing with weight loss, you know? Recruiting people of all do like so he gets very quickly into the I'm less about helping people and more about making money as a psychologist. OK in 1984 he meets Thelma Box, an insurance and real estate agent from Graham, TX who asked him to go into business with her to create a brand new motivational seminar. Now we're talking again like the 70s eighties, which is the Golden age of motivational seminars. That's when this whole thing really explodes. Motivational seminars are basically short term cults for two to five. Days, several dozen to several, 100 to sometimes even a couple of 1000 people will pack into an auditorium where a charismatic frontman and a handful of his buddies will coach them, usually by hyping the room up, using simple crowd work tactics to make people feel temporarily elated, and tricking them into having, like, cathartic experiences and thinking they've learned something. You know? Yeah, that's the whole idea. Have people get like people, the mania of a crowd kind of going, make people cry or laugh and think like something significant has happened. Just probing personal questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In public, in front of a bunch of people. It's a whole big grift. Yeah. Thelma Box was a, well, I don't know, grift. I think a lot of people just like them. I've known people who like admit that they did never got anything long term out of it, but just enjoy the experience that I guess if that's your thing, it kind of depends. Whatever. Yeah. People are just like they're like, yeah, I know Tony. Well, Tony Robbins is maybe not the best example, but like, yeah, this person is like basically full of ****. But, you know, I, I had a couple $100 to burn in a weekend to burn. It made me feel good. You know, I don't care, I guess, if that's your thing. We all have joy where you can get it. Yeah. Every there's a lot of people who like, there's people who like to climb the ice, filled sides of mountains with crampons and ******* like, pitons and stuff, and a lot of them die. There's people like to do cave diving, which is the deadliest thing you could possibly do to relax. So, like, I don't know, people do ****. I don't care. But most of the people doing these seminars are actually like people at some kind of, like crisis point in their life having a difficulty and that that's. That's the problem with it. And it's like, it depends on how you sell it too. Like, if you're, like, promising, ohh, if you come this weekend, you're gonna leave and make $1,000,000 in the next, you know that that there's varying degrees. There's varying degrees. Some of them are just like, I'm gonna make you feel good about yourself so you can go out and attack the world. And I guess that's kind of less problematic where it's like, OK, like, whatever, you know, it's basically expensive church. OK, yeah. Like, you will not make me not hate myself, friend. Better men than you have tried. So Thelma Box, who you know is Phil's friend, is a huge fan of these kind of motivational seminars. She done all the big ones. Zig Ziglar actual guy out there. You can find his books at any given estate sale. Dale Carnegie. You can also find his books at any given estate sale. Tony Robbins. You can also find his books at any given estate sale. All the estate sale? Great. She does their seminars with like boogers on the side of the box. Yeah, most of her classes had been focused on her. Career like, they'd been like focused on helping salesman, right? Because that's a big subset of this industry. She sold insurance and real estate, so they've been conferences to help real estate and insurance salesman sell better. Box felt that there was a market for a seminar focused instead of financial stuff on personal growth, on how to actually be a better person. Now box had gotten to know Doctor Phil because her son had hired him to renegotiate a bunch of bank loans. She decided Phil was the best negotiator she'd ever seen, quote. He has a God-given gift, a combination of charm and charisma that can mesmerize a room full of people and, again, people who disagree about a lot of stuff about Doctor Phil. Nobody disagrees about this part. He's apparently just an incredible negotiator. So she decides he's going to be a great front man for this life improvement seminar she wants to host now. Her initial plan had been to lead a success seminar for single women, but McGraw pushed back against this. He didn't want to limit himself to just female customers. Instead. The. The plan that he made was for both or instead he was like we should do like a general like life improvement for everybody. Like come here and I'll, I'll help you deal with whatever things are holding you back in your life, right. Like that's kind of the how Phil innovates the pitch. Now initially the plan that boxed fronted was for box and fill to be 5050 partners in this venture. But right before they started going, yeah, exactly. Right before they started going doctor Phil demanded that he was gonna walk if she didn't bring his dad in as an equal shareholder. Yeah. Bringing Daddy into it. Yeah. And this this was a negotiation tactic from box quote. Getting his dad involved would give Phil control. I didn't want to be a minority owner, but he threatened to do the seminars without me. Now, since Box was not a doctor and she'd already given Phil all of her ideas, she didn't feel like she could do the seminar without him, but he could do it without her. So she was kind of in a tight spot here. So she agreed. She claims that she basically brilliant. Yeah. He's this the guy he is. She claimed she built the the. The curriculum of the program from the ground up, designing most of the games and all of like the different like worksheets and **** you had to do. And basically in fairness, like I don't think box is a great person. She's taking all of the information for this from other seminars she attended and is just modifying them enough to avoid plagiarizing the grifter. And the grifter never likes that. Yeah, she gets ****** over by Phil, but like I don't particularly like her either, so that's what I wanna take that negotiation tactic in and apply it to the stand up comedy world. Like, all right, I know that you're supposed to be featuring for me, but actually my dad is going to be opening now, and so you're actually. So it's going to be my dad. Then you you'll be doing a shorter set. I will then be doing 5 hours, like, that's that would be so fun. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm excited for that, for you, Jamie. Thank you. But you know what isn't exciting? What is an exciting life without the products and services that support this podcast? Absolutely. I'm not even really worth living. Like, if we're being frank, what are you even doing without these products and services? What are you? Nothing. Nothing. All right, here's ads. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. 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Hey, it's Rick Schwartz, one of your hosts for San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we sit down with Doctor Jane Goodall to hear her inspiring thoughts on how we can create a better future for humans, animals and the environment. If we don't help them find ways of making a living without destroying the environment, we can't save chimps, forests or anything else. And that becomes very clear when you look at poverty around the world. If you're living in poverty, you can't afford to ask as we can. Did this product harm the environment? Was it cruel to animals like, was it factory farmed? Is it cheap because of unfair wages paid to people and so alleviating poverty? Is tremendously important. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. Ohh, I hope you all spent money. Cause this whole ******* wheel of blood doesn't keep turning if you don't put money into it. People. Oh boy, you know? Yeah, that's how it works. Yeah, that's how it works. Fine when you want this to fall apart. No. Yes. Anyway, so yeah, the basic idea of these seminars that box mostly cooks up and fill is supposed to present is to teach people how to find out what they want from life. By making them more accountable, by expressing vulnerabilities, stripping away. Health deception, which I'll just means, like making people cry in a big room surrounded by other people, you know, like, that's the goal, right? That that's the goal, yeah. With no connection to the outside world. And yeah, gaslight them into believing something that they don't. Short term cults, which is the kind of cult I'd like to do because it does sound exhausting having to like every time I watch my favorite TV show, which is the Waco TV show where they made David Koresh have incredible come gutters, 60 minutes, 40 seconds before editing. Before Waco, I just it's it seems like it's exhausting, like we all love David Koresh, but my God, the man had to put in a lot of work just to just to keep a cult going. Like, it just doesn't seem worth it, right? To begin with that sentence. Short term cults, like if I could just do like a limited Waco, like 5 or 6 * a year over the course of like 4 days, that seems much better. It's like a juicing. Yeah, it's a juicing of the spirit. You you're just left. Like you feel like you're better off. You're probably not. It doesn't matter because you could sleep for three days. Yes, Sophie, take out take down a podcast idea. The 40 minute Waco. I think we could make a lot of money with this. Anyway, back to Doctor Phil. So what made the this this seminar thing that he launches with Box special is the the group dynamic. Getting 100 or so people together in a room crying and sharing stories and having the kind of addictive, cathartic experiences that make seminar hosts rich people. Phil and Box were good at it and Doctor Phil instantly gained a reputation as a magnetic host one. Attendee recalled. Quote, his voice was miked and he sounded God, like I watched powerful men crumble as he questioned them. He knew just the right buttons to push. Wow. You know, it's not that he's a great psychologist, is that he is an incredibly intuitive man who understands people, which is why he's a good negotiator. He does have a great voice. I'll give that to him. He does. Oh yeah, yeah. He knows how to manipulate people, right? He's a great manipulator and that you could make a lot of money doing that. That's the most, like, dangerous trade in the world is understanding people but just not caring what happens to them. Yes, yes, yeah, I understand people but care about what happens to them. Which is why I tell them to buy machetes and bolt cutters. And you're saying more anti personnel mines? Yes, definitely saving lives. By the way, when you're ordering your Claymore anti personnel line, use promo code ******** for 15% off. If you buy four or more Claymore, **** anyone in front of you. What? No. Sophie? Robert? Doctor? Doctor. Phil. Doctor. Phil. OK, yeah. So this seminar. Series was called Pathways and it became hugely popular. For a while they were making ******* bank and the whole process of doing this awoken fill, or at least accelerated a deep desire to get on TV. He started pushing for his own talk talk show, schmoozing with a Hollywood producer who made the mistake of attending one of his seminars. Phil succeeded in talking said producer into filming a pilot episode of a show where three people went through Doctor Phil's training and told their stories of like, you know how it helped them. The show sounds incredibly boring. And clearly it was not picked up. Now, over his years with Pathways, McGraw developed into a talented showman, one of his coworkers, David Dickinson, later recalled. Once he got in front of the room, it didn't take long to feel the power. He loved being God like and worshipped. The only reason it didn't become a cult is because Thelma wouldn't let it. Yeah. So, yeah. OK. He really does sound like chaos Frasier. Yeah. Chaos Frasier. Yes. Yeah. Doctor Phil was on the Fraser, probably. Frasier heads. Doctor God, you're writing. Was the show the episode the Devil and Doctor Phil. I mean, The thing is if you actually, Frasier was a big show for my family growing up. And so, like, while my mom was was dying, we watched a lot of episodes because, you know, there wasn't a lot that she could do. And it was kind of a thing that was nostalgic for all of us. Yeah. But one of the through lines of the series is that Frasier's not a good psychologist. Like, not a good psychiatrist. Like, he's bad. It's like, that's why he's. On the radio, yeah. He's a bit of a grifter too. More because, yeah, Niles is supposed to be good. Yeah, yeah, Niles is competent, although problematic. Definitely some stalking behavior from Niles. Ohh yes, Niles is also cancelled, but all but nobody on that show is a good person. But John Mahoney, the only good cop. Frasier's dad, that's that's absolutely true. And not even, not even Eddie is safe from from cancellation. And honestly. Just not a good cop. John Mahoney admits to lying on the stand in order to get him in incarcerated during an episode of Frasier. It's just like an offside comment. Yes, he absolutely does. He's just such a damn charismatic actor. I can't stay mad at the man. So by the late 1980s, pathways had moved to Dallas, where each year more than 1000 people would pay $1000 each to attend a single weekend defense. With McGraw. That's a million bucks in a weekend. So Jesus, again, great money in this. Uh, yeah, so Doctor Phil is. I don't know if he's a millionaire at this point, but he is well off at this point. Now. He, unfortunately, like his dad, is involved in the whole thing. And doctor Phil never had a great relationship with his father. I think he was just kind of using him to get control of the thing. But like, he and his dad don't get along. They're both egomaniacs. And to make matters worse, the older Doctor McGraw was basically just kind of like there to cash a check. Like when he would show up on stage, you'd be like erratic and kind of say nonsense and and not really help the business at all. So worse than nothing, worse than nothing. The two men started to hate each other, which a number number of employees noted as somewhat. But critical quote come on, here is a guy who was running a relationship seminar, and he doesn't speak to his own father in the training room for years. He didn't talk, walk his own talk. That is a fair, hypocritical criticism. Yeah, yeah, that's hilarious, though. And while Doctor Phil's relationship with his dad kind of went to **** his relationship with Thelma Box, who had founded the program that made him rich and developed its curriculum, got even worse, the Dallas Observer writes. Quote The McGraw and Box were partners for more than seven years. And friends. More than a dozen. His treatment of her didn't seem much better. On November 16th, 1992, Box received a faxed memo from McGraw informing her that he had made a tentative deal to sell his interest in pathways to Midland philanthropist Steve Davidson. McGraw was ready to move on, his father ready to retire. That's why his father had sold his 1/3 interest. The memo informed her to a Wichita Falls businessman. Of course, the new partners quote, understand yours and my relationship and know that I am committed to you as a friend and associate and expect fair treatment. Basically, he sold me. On the river, says Box, who recalls having heated discussions with McGraw about either selling her own pathways interest or buying him out. In the two weeks prior to the memo, Phil and I hadn't been getting along. He stopped talking to me and I knew we couldn't go on that way. What he had neglected to tell her, she says, is that he had engineered this corporate takeover scheme by actually selling his interest more than a year earlier, on October 15th, 1991, he signed an agreement for his sale of PATH for the sale of his pathway stock for $325,000. I absolutely told her I was selling, McGraw says. Which he didn't like was who I was selling to. Now you can take whoever's word you want on this, but the author of that article was giving a memo, was given a memo that McGraw sit to the buyer of his stock in which he agreed. The buyer agreed that the sale would be kept confident confidential from everyone including Box. So I'm gonna go ahead and say that Phil is the liar here. He basically knew like he wanted to sell out early when his stuff was worth more than hers would be. Like with with only 1/3 of it left her like they she's not gonna get as much money for it. And he lies. She keeps. She's trying to buy it from him for a year after he's already sold it, and he's just stonewalling her like he's yeah, it's it's it's a ****** way to treat a business partner. It it absolutely is. Yeah. It's like it's hard to care about anyone involved in this, this whole situation. But he does sound like the party who wronged her. Yeah, and he acknowledges that the material from his first best selling book was basically lifted entirely from the pathways curriculum. But he has never acknowledged that Thelma Box actually wrote the curriculum. He based his best. Billing book on so and they definitely didn't mention whoever found the box stole it from. So there's no and that again, that's the thing like, right. The point is that he is a con man, not that she is particularly a victim here. You know, he's like, I don't care about Thelma Box. In 1989, Doctor Phil was living and working in Wichita. He keeps going back to ******* Kansas, enjoying his pathways, money and working as a psychologist. One of his patients was a young woman who he started and maintained a quote inappropriate dual relationship with. Again, that means dual. Yeah, he is her. He is her doctor and he is ******* her. Ohh, don't **** your doctor. Come on. Yeah, shouldn't be doing that with the patient you're providing psychiatric care to. Definitely don't. Kind of a no no, but don't. So don't **** your doctor. He then made the relationship even more inappropriate when he hired her part time while she was still his patient and lover. Which is so many conflicts of interest. Like, no, that is I. Yeah, yeah. You gotta give the man credit for really going out of his way to to to do the most unethical version of that thing he could. Like. You're right, Robert. I do gotta hand it to yeah, critical support to Doctor Phil for managing the ******* the *******. I don't know. What do you the trifecta. I guess I will. So my spirit is worn down. I'll hand it to him. Dustin. Doctor Phil considers this transgression to just have been a misdemeanor. But the journalist from the doubt behind the the journalist who wrote that Dallas Observer article looked into the situation. He found the woman doctor Phil had the relationship with, and he found out a lot more besides. And it's pretty ******* sketchy quote. In 1984, she was a college student returning home after her sophomore year, depressed, lonely and suicidal. I was emotionally abused as a child, she says, and suffered from low self esteem. When McGraw began treating her, she says he became fully involved in her life, demanding to know with whom she spoke when she went to bed at night. What she did that day, if I was depressed or anxious, his first question was, why didn't you call me? Every time I felt bad, he insisted only he could fix me. When she wanted to spend the following summer working for a professor at the Houston University she was attending, he persuaded her to work in his biofeedback lab in Wichita Falls. He kept me totally dependent on him, she says. So that's textbook abuse. Like, that's just, like, literally textbook abuse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Couldn't be clearer. Hate it. Hate it so much. There's so many levels to. Yeah, like on multiple levels. God, that's ******* terrible. It's really bad. It's really a. He's a bad person, Jamie. He's just a real bad person. He's your employer. Like, ******* hell. Not to be like complimenting Dr Oz, but by this point, the Doctor Oz story, he's performed thousands of open heart surgeries. Again, doctor Phil. They're both grifters. Doctor Phil never does a single good thing like that to to even the scales at all. He's just a monster. Ohh right. And you get the feeling, doctor Oz. See, I have never heard a complaint that he's abusive in his personal relationships. People mostly that. I've heard reports that he's kind of a narcissist, but I've never heard that he's like a monster. Doctor Phil's a monster. You know, make a fan Cam of him already. I don't know. I'm just he's a useful. He's a useful comparison. I I just really hate doctor Phil. Yes. So the formal complaint this woman filed led to a decision from the psychology board that Doctor Phil's practice would have to be supervised for a year before that time came up. He quit his practice and moved to Dallas to start a new company. Courtroom Sciences incorporated, or CSI, with his neighbor from Wichita. His job was basically to use his psychology knowledge to help lawyers pick jurors. He loved the work, particularly the adrenaline that came from the high stakes of a court case. Doctor Phil's company was a hit, and his client soon included every major airliner on Earth, three TV networks, and dozens of Fortune 500 companies. Before long, it came to include Oprah Winfrey. Damn it, Oprah. Yeah. Like you know it's coming, but you know it's coming longer. And Oprah and airlines. Hmm. Yeah, the two, the two sacred things in our society. Oprah and the airlines. I wanna know. Every single time Oprah comes into the discussion, I I am. Like, where was Stedman on all of this? Where does he? Because stedman. What were you ******* doing? Stephen writes books that are alleging to be about something but are actually about nothing. But he's. But he's nice, so I don't care. Yeah, I hope I hope that Stedman was like, something's not right. Oprah. And she was like, I'm. I'm not listening to you, Stephen. I'm assuming that's how the relationship works. She was like, I'm going to make so much money. An outrageous amount of money. Stedman, like, quiet. We're getting a yacht. I will be able to clone you when you die, Stedman. That's how much money I'm gonna make. Maybe that's what solved him I used to do. I used to do a little fan drawings of Stedman Graham and the the barefoot, Contessa's husband hanging out. That's very unsettling, Jamie. Yeah, they would just be like sharing an umbrella anyways. So Oprah had made the questionable decision to do an episode of her show on the dangers of disease in the American beef supply. A bunch of Texas cattlemen sued her for fraud, defamation, and, you know, just hurting their businesses. Now, I have no idea who's in the right here, and I really don't care. The case looked like to be going badly for Oprah until she brought in Doctor Phil to be a part of her trial team. He instantly recognized her as someone he could make money off of, and he's set to work charming her. Fill did his job, he coached her and the defense team and how to respond under questioning, and he won Oprah's adoration. And to his credit, it seems like he did a good job because she was exonerated. Ohh wow. And after the case ended in her favor, she did a verdict episode of her show from Amarillo, TX, where for the first time she introduced Doctor Phil McGraw to a national audience. She called him one of the smartest men in the world. She was so impressed that she added that he was this, like, literally the most intelligent man she'd met in her 12 years of talking to medical experts. She said she wanted to share his brilliance with the world. Yeah, this hyperbole is gonna get, and we are we are going to talk about where this hyperbole gets all of us in part two of our epic series, Doctor Phil. What a. What * ****. What is that the subtitle of? Yep. Perfect. **** ******* a doctor. Phil, come on, help. You're * ****. Could you not? Could you not? Could you just go back to football? I feel like one more head injury could really solve a lot of our problems as a country. The thing is like that every single time. You're like, well, *** ****. I bet that if this whole football thing had gone different, the world would be a lot less doctor Phil. I don't even necessarily want his football career to have gone well. If he just got in a hit 20% harder, you know that that would have been enough for me. OK. OK. You know what? You I I I see. I see your point of view. Yeah. Anyway, Jamie. Yeah? Any plegables you wanna drop? Yeah, just the usuals. You can listen to actual Castle Beta podcast and my urine Mensa on iHeartRadio. And then I have a new podcast coming up about Kathy coming in June that Sophie is producing. I'm excited. Check out Jamies ****** Cathy podcast. I assume it's ******. Is that correct? No, I mean, it's very, you know what? I, I, you know, I wish that Kathy was having a lot of sex, but you can't do that in the newspapers. Not then. I mean, it doesn't. She doesn't need to be having sex for the podcast about Kathy to just be like the fundamental, the fundamental arrows of Kathy is so overwhelming, you know? Yeah. You just you just hear that last name. Gus White and. There's still time. There's still time. I'll I'll I'll let her know. But they didn't post. Going to be an ****** podcast. Can you make it ******* Kathy? Just like 12%. Anyway. I hope the rest of you have a day that's 12% *******. We'll be back Thursday. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break our handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. 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