The Secret About Long Island Medium You Weren't Supposed To Know

Long Island Medium star Theresa Caputo has dodged questions for years about whether she can actually communicate with the dead. Regardless of what you personally believe about Caputo's powers, there's no arguing with how she helps her clients heal after the loss of a loved one. The brassy New Yorker likes to face skeptics head on, telling the Chicago Tribune she doesn't care what anyone thinks of her work.

"It doesn't matter to me if people believe in what I do. I want people to believe in themselves and to know that their departed loved ones are still with them," Caputo explained. As she sees it, "They just want to know that their loved ones are OK in the spirit world. And if I give them a feeling of validation for this, that's all that matters to me." Still, there are some who believe Caputo to be a phony and one investigator, in particular, has set out to prove it once and for all.

According to a scathing report in Radar Online, controversial private investigator Ron Tebo says, "Theresa is like a vulture preying on the most vulnerable." Tebo created fraud whistle-blower site SciFake.com, where he's gathered plenty of footage of the Long Island Medium star supposedly messing up readings during live performances. 

Chief among Tebo's criticisms of Caputo is that she's a cold-reader, who uses high-probability questioning during consultations with her clients to determine how best to conduct the session. Likewise, at live shows, "She'll ask the group a question like, 'Who lost an older male relative to heart problems?' It's the oldest trick in the medium's book." When casting for her hit reality show, the medium chooses clients only after extensive research, so she can manipulate onscreen conversations for the best and most dramatic readings possible, according to her critics.

It's worth noting, as Radar Online details, several of Caputo's fans have left her shows feeling less than satisfied with the experience. Likewise, a reporter from her hometown paper slammed the Long Island Medium star after a shoddy reading. "In my humble opinion, Caputo is a damn good performer, and she's got undeniably likable sass and charisma. I just don't think she speaks with the dead. Or she didn't the night that I saw her," Jaime Franchi wrote in the Long Island Press.

Bravo host Andy Cohen also called Caputo out for "fishing" during his reading, according to Radar Online, which is something many audience members have complained about over the years. According to Tebo, who claims to have privately spoken with many of her clients, Caputo tends to make lucky guesses after cold reading or analyzing a client's body language, but that's all there is to it.