TV psychic Miss Cleo passes away at 53

She was first diagnosed with colon cancer that spread to her liver and her lungs.

She died Tuesday in Palm Beach County surrounded by family and close friends, according to a statement from her Fort Lauderdale attorney, William J. Cone Jr. The companies agreed to cancel $500 million in customers’ bills in that case alone.

Miss Cleo operated as a pay-per-call psychic from 1997-2003, and her iconic TV spots were a staple of late night television. The ads stopped after the Psychic Readers Network sued, saying it owned the character.

The Miss Cleo character was later revived when she appeared in adverts for a used auto dealership in Florida. But she wasn’t from Jamaica. Profiled by New Times in 2002, it became clear that she wasn’t always who she said she was. The last commercials aired in the early 2000s, but Harris had already established a mini-mystic empire of tarot readings, clothes, and even a dating website.

She spent the end of her life working as a spiritual adviser, and she is survived by her two children as well as an unknown number of grandchildren. “Miss Cleo!’ and I try to run”, she said.

The L.A. native previously spoke about her work as a psychic in the documentaries Becoming Psychic (2010) and Hotline (2014). “I’ve had people come up to me – there’s a big controversy about ‘Miss Cleo is not Jamaican”, right?'”