Last week, TV personality Phil McGraw (better known as Dr. Phil) announced that after 21 years of peddling advice as “America’s shrink,” he will be ending his daytime TV show to pursue “new ventures.” This announcement prompted sadness from his fans — and “good riddance” from his many critics.
A statement released by CBS Media Ventures explained that “McGraw will focus on prime-time programming and plans to announce a strategic prime-time partnership, scheduled for an early 2024 launch, which will expand his reach and increase his impact on television and viewers.”
This announcement prompted sadness from his fans — and “good riddance” from his many critics.
“I am compelled to engage with a broader audience because I have grave concerns for the American family,” McGraw said in that same statement, “and I am determined to help restore a clarity of purpose as well as our core values.”
For Dr. Phil detractors, of whom I count myself one, this statement raised some red flags. Since at least 2016, this country has been grappling with the dangerous fallout of elevating reality TV stars to unprecedented heights and bestowing them unearned authority (see former Senate nominee Mehmet Oz and former president Donald Trump). What we absolutely do not need is a Dr. Phil cinematic universe, a bigger platform for him to peddle useless weight-loss plans, ridicule insecure teenage girls and mothers, or broadcast the misery of addicts, live, into millions of households.
The controversial (nonmedical) “doctor”— he does hold a doctorate in clinical psychology but stopped renewing his license to practice psychology in 2006, and has never held a California license, where his show is filmed — began his television tenure because of Oprah Winfrey. In 1995, Winfrey hired McGraw’s legal consulting firm after she was sued for libel by Texan cattle ranchers. (She later won the suit.) In 1998, Winfrey began bringing McGraw onto “The Oprah Winfrey…
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