Tyler Henry

Tyler Henry (born January 13, 1996) is an American reality show personality who appears in the series Hollywood Medium With Tyler Henry as a clairvoyant medium.[1] The series began broadcast on the E! Television Network in the United States in January 2016,[2] and was E!'s largest launch of a non-spinoff unscripted series in the past three years with 3.2 million viewers for its third episode.[3] A number of critics have called Henry a "grief vampire" and criticized the show for targeting people who are grieving and vulnerable and exploiting them for entertainment.[4]

Early life

Henry is a native of Hanford, California, a small rural suburb just outside Fresno.[5]

After giving readings to students and teachers at Hanford's Sierra Pacific High School, from which he graduated on an accelerated academic program,[5] Henry initially aspired to attend college and become a hospice nurse.[5][6] However, Henry soon was "discovered". Before long, he gained a celebrity clientele and a reality TV development deal.[5] Henry, who has never had a driver's license and who is often driven to readings by his mother,[5] began filming his E! television series when he was 19 years old; the show began airing a week after his 20th birthday.[7] Henry reportedly welcomes skepticism about his work: "I am content with people asking questions", he told the Fresno Bee.[5]

Career

Hollywood Medium With Tyler Henry premiered on E! on January 24, 2016. After a successful premiere, E! ordered two additional episodes, making it 10 episodes total. The show airs Sunday nights at 10 pm. In March 2016, It was announced that E! had ordered a second season of the show.[8]

In March 2016, E! reported that Henry was writing his first memoir with Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. The book publisher told E! that the book "will reveal what living life as a medium is really like—from opening up about discovering his gift as a young teen to what it's truly like to communicate with the departed. He also discusses the difficulty he had accepting his rare talents and the courage it took to share them with the world."[9]

Henry has given readings to a number of celebrities, some of whom believe Henry has the ability to foretell the future or pass messages from dead relatives, such as retired NBA player John Salley[10] and actors Monica Potter, Tom Arnold,[11] Amber Rose,[12] and Rob Dyrdek.[13]

Criticism

Susan Gerbic has dismissed Henry as one of many "grief vampires" who have gained recent cultural notoriety, and she is particularly critical of Henry's stated aspiration of offering counseling to parents who have lost children to suicide,[6] a practice Gerbic describes as "prey[ing] on families when they are the most desperate and vulnerable".[14] Gerbic describes the performances as "a fabric of lies", saying that people like Henry "prey on the poor and disaffected."[15] Sharon Hill has also been critical, saying "It's hardly a 'skill' to guess at celebrities' lives", noting that his apparent successes on the show are "craftily edited" for television audiences.[16] "What Henry's doing isn't entertainment" states Hemant Mehta, "it's deception". Mehta doubts that Henry will submit to scientific trials, and feels that he is "just the latest telegenic star on a network dedicated to celebrating vapid people."[4] Neurologist Steven Novella agrees with Gerbic that psychics like Henry are "grief vampires" who say they are giving comfort to grieving families: "Henry wishes to inject made up BS. He is not a trained counselor, and working with the grieving is very tricky. The potential for harm is tremendous."[17] David Gorski writes that if Henry restricted his readings to celebrities as entertainment, then that would be harmless, but Henry wants to work with grieving parents whose children have committed suicide. "Likely the producer of his show is looking for such grieving parents right now, fodder for the grief vampire, to be shown for the morbid entertainment of the masses."[18] Huffington Post entertainment writer Cole Delbyck criticized the show and Henry's claims to connect celebrities with their deceased loved ones, saying, "from the previews, it looks fairly exploitative and tasteless".[19]

Mentalist Mark Edward and Gerbic commented in detail on the readings Henry gave to Ross Matthews, Margaret Cho, Jodie Sweetin and Julian Ross Reed (Season 1, Episode 3). They state that Henry does not need to know who he is reading for in advance as "it appears to be nothing more than lukewarm cold-reading, flattery and generalities." The sitters in the post interviews claimed that Henry had been very specific, but Gerbic and Edward could not find one single hit, noting errors in memory for each sitter.[20]

References

  1. ↑ Rees, Alex (January 22, 2016). "This Celebrity Medium Once Channeled Brittany Murphy's Spirit During a Reading, No Really". Cosmopolitan. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
  2. ↑ Petski, Denise (July 29, 2015). "Teen Clairvoyant Delivers Messages From Beyond In E!'s 'Hollywood Teen Medium'". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
  3. ↑ Wagmeister, Elizabeth (February 5, 2016). "E! Orders Two More Episodes of 'Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry'". Variety. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  4. 1 2 Hemant, Mehta. "Hollywood "Medium" Tyler Henry, Whose Show Premieres Sunday, Wants to Specialize in Suicide Victims". Friendly Atheist. Patheos. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bentley, Rick (January 16, 2016). "Hanford's Tyler Henry shares gift on new E! TV series 'Hollywood Medium'". Fresno Bee. Retrieved January 29, 2016.
  6. 1 2 Rees, Nicholas Richard (December 22, 2015). "Tyler Henry Opens Up About His Psychic Abilities". Out Magazine. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
  7. ↑ Cohen, Jess (January 12, 2016). "9 Things You Didn't Know About Hollywood Medium's Tyler Henry". E! Online. Retrieved January 29, 2016.
  8. ↑ Wagmeister, Elizabeth. "E! Renews ‘Hollywood Medium With Tyler Henry’ for Season 2". Variety. Retrieved 2016-04-01.
  9. ↑ "Tyler Henry Is Writing a Book! Get the Exclusive Scoop on the Hollywood Medium Star's Exciting New Memoir on Hollywood Medium". E! Online. Retrieved 2016-04-01.
  10. ↑ "Hollywood Medium With Tyler Henry Recap: NeNe Leakes, Bella Thorne and 5 OMG Moments From the Series Premiere on Hollywood Medium". E! Online. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  11. ↑ "Oi! Why aren't you watching Hollywood Medium yet?". Digital Spy. 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  12. ↑ "Amber Rose Has a New Man in Her Life! Find Out Who!". Us Weekly. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  13. ↑ "Tyler Henry Predicted Rob Dyrdek Would Have a Little Boy on ‘Hollywood Medium’ — Watch!". In Touch Weekly. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  14. ↑ Gerbic, Susan (January 20, 2016). "Grief Vampires Don't Come Out Only at Night". The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). Retrieved January 29, 2016.
  15. ↑ Coyne, Jerry. "E! about to debut new show starring a psychic "grief vampire"". Why Evolution is True. WordPress. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  16. ↑ Hill, Sharon. "Real-deal "boy next door" medium? Or Hollywood hype?". Doubtful News. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  17. ↑ Novella, Steven. "Grief Vampires". Neurologica. NESS. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  18. ↑ Gorski, David. "The rise of a new grief vampire". Respectful Insolence. Science Blogs. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  19. ↑ Delbyck, Cole. "We’re Not So Convinced This Guy Is Channeling The Spirit Of Brittany Murphy". Huffington Post. HuffingtonPost.com. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  20. ↑ "Tip the Canoe of Tyler Too! - CSI". www.csicop.org. Retrieved 2016-04-18.
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