Miss Cleo

Harris was born in Los Angeles on August 12, 1962, and raised in a Catholic Caribbean family.[4] She attended an all-girls boarding school.[5]

In 1996, Harris and her partner opened a theatrical production company in Seattle, Washington, which produced several plays written by her.[3] She also acted in her first project, an autobiographical play entitled For Women Only.[3]

Her last project, Supper Club Cafe in 1997, was not successful, and she "left town with a trail of debts and broken promises" according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.[3] Some of the cast of her productions claimed that they were never paid, and that Harris "told her cast members she had bone cancer" and "her medical costs would prevent her from paying people immediately", but she wrote each actor and crew member a letter telling him or her how much money she owed them.[3]

In the late 1990s, Harris began work for the Psychic Readers Network under the name Cleo. She appeared as a television infomercial psychic in which she claimed to be a shaman from Jamaica.[5][6] Her employers' website also stated that Harris had been born in Trelawny, Jamaica, and grown up there.[4]

The Psychic Readers Network is said to have coined the title "Miss Cleo" and sent unsolicited emails,[7] some of which stated, "[Miss Cleo has] been authorized to issue you a Special Tarot Reading!... it is vital that you call immediately!" Charges of deceptive advertising and of fraud on the part of the Psychic Readers Network began to surface around this time.[8] Among the complaints were allegations that calls to Miss Cleo were answered by her "associates" who were actors reading from scripts, and that calls promoted as "free" were in fact charged for.[5][9]

A tie-in book, Keepin' It Real: A Practical Guide for Spiritual Living appeared in 2001 Its authorship was attributed to Miss Cleo.[10][11]

In 2001, Access Resource Services, doing business as Psychic Readers Network, was sued in various lawsuits originating in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and elsewhere, as well as the Federal Communications Commission, although a later report from Consumer Affairs said that "many customers were satisfied with the service."[12] The report did not cite its source.

In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission charged the company's owners and Harris' promoters, Steven Feder and Peter Stotz, with deceptive advertising, billing, and collection practices; Harris was not indicted.[13] The Psychic Readers Network had billed its victims for an estimated $1 billion.[12] Her promoters agreed to settle by erasing $500 million of debt owed by its victims to Psychic Readers Network and paying a $5 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission.[14][12] It emerged during a lawsuit in Florida that Harris had been born in Los Angeles, and that her parents were US citizens.[12]

Harris voiced the character of Auntie Poulet in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.[15][16]

In 2003, the New York Daily News reported that TV music network Fuse had signed Harris as a spokeswoman.[17] In early 2005, Harris was reportedly appearing on television as Miss Cleo in advertisements for a used car dealership in Florida, according to the Broward-Palm Beach New Times.[18]

Under the name Cleomili Harris, she spoke about her experiences at the Psychic Readers Network in the 2014 documentary Hotline, which focused on telephone relationships between strangers.[10][19]

As Miss Cleo, Harris appeared in a 2015 series of advertisements for the General Mills breakfast cereal French Toast Crunch. The Psychic Readers Network intervened on the basis that they owned the character of Miss Cleo. The advertisements were discontinued.[9]