In keeping with the Halloween spirit, this week’s induction is guaranteed to send chills up and down your spine…
This week, we look at the E! Network’s Hollywood Medium and his séances for the departed souls of wrestlers’ loved ones. What you’re about to read is a collection of tales of ghosts, spirits, and messages from beyond the grave.
But that’s not the scary part.
No, the horror of this induction is the Hollywood Medium himself, the Culkin-esque grief vampire Tyler Henry.
And if you don’t think Macaulay Culkin can be terrifying, you’ve never seen The Good Son.
As you might expect from a self-professed clairvoyant and medium for the dead, Tyler’s childhood was anything but normal, having been born without a conscience.
And he’s so much more than just a medium: he’s an evidentially-based medium! And throughout his short but budding career, he has used his extraordinary gifts to re-connect ordinary people with their departed family and friends, so long as they’re famous. His clientele includes several former and current WWE talents.
We begin with a first-season episode of his show, where Tyler travels to a gym to conduct a session with Natalya, member of the tragedy-stricken Hart family.
Tyler claims that he goes into all of his sessions cold, without even knowing with whom he’ll be working.
It’s very important that no one from the E! Network, which also airs Nattie’s show, give Tyler any of the inside info she tells them.
Another staple of Tyler’s routine? Before he can relay any information from the other side, he has to take meticulous notes.
Here, the spirits are telling him to scribble all over his note pad.
Tyler picks up on “a child” and “a reference to the name Matt… or Matthew or Matty” (or Maddie), along with any number of red herrings that got left on the cutting room floor. Natalya explains that Matt is the name of someone she knew (Matt Annis, her cousin and Teddy Hart’s brother) who died, then volunteers a bunch of key information to Tyler.
That might sound like a slam dunk for the “evidentially-based medium”, but his clues prove to be significantly less specific when you realize they could just as easily apply to Jeff Hardy’s mother (who died and left behind a child named Matthew) or Jonathan Turner (a teenage Corey Matthews’s teacher who died* in a motorcycle accident). But Natalya, being caught up in her emotions like, you know, a human, doesn’t notice how deceptively vague Tyler is being.
Also, ever notice how these mediums can never settle on one name for the spirit communicating with them? It’s always Matt or Matthew or some other “M” name. Still, Tyler did better than fellow TV psychic Kim Russo, who suggested that Owen Hart, a 34-year-old man, may have gone by the name, “Owey.”
And at least he managed to positively identify this Matt/Matthew/Matty as a cousin of Natalya’s who died at age thirteen, although, if you want get technical, it was Natalya who connected every single one of those dots, not Tyler. He did accept the credit graciously, though.
“There’s a reference to saving a hat,” says Tyler. “Yep,” says Nattie after an abrupt camera cut where she nods along while Tyler mouths something completely unrelated.
Strangely, that reference to a “reference to saving a hat” is the only reference to saving a hat, as neither the reference nor the reference to the reference is ever referenced again.
Next, Tyler recounts one of wrestling’s greatest tragedies in a disgustingly chipper manner. (Disclaimer: by clicking this link, you, the reader, assume all responsibility for any computer monitors that may be smashed as a result)
The more you listen, the more you believe Tyler’s claim not to know his clients’ identities before meeting them. The vague, ambiguous way he describes this nameless mystery man (or woman)’s death implies total ignorance of whether Owen Hart (as Nattie identifies him) died from an equipment malfunction, a car accident, a drug overdose, or a heart attack.
In journalism, this is called, “Nancy Grace syndrome.”
He also adds that the death occurred during what should have been a happy time, which could very well describe a WWF pay-per-view… or any time around Christmas… or Thanksgiving… or a birthday, job promotion, wedding, or birth.
For the record, this is the third time Owen Hart has been contacted by a TV medium, and amazingly, he’s still willing to talk to these creeps.
I don’t want to judge the depth of Tyler’s insights, but this session probably lasted at least half an hour, and just about the only supernatural information deemed worthy of inclusion on the show was the fact that one person died, another person died, and that they both want Nattie to keep wrestling.
Of course they want her to continue doing what she’s doing. You didn’t think Tyler would let Natalya’s deceased relatives tell her to leave WWE, quit her TV show, and take a safe office job, did you?
A grateful Natalya takes a goodbye selfie with Tyler and, to everyone’s surprise, he actually shows up in the photograph!
Tyler turned out to be such a (piece of s)hit with Nattie that he got brought onto another E! reality show to consult with a different Diva, Barbie Blank, better known as Kelly Kelly.
On Season 2 of WAGS (Wives and Girlfriends of Sports Stars) (and yes, I know, that should be, WAGSS), Tyler Henry shows up at a gathering of the program’s stars to work his magic.
Tyler explains to the WAGS why exactly he scribbles on his notepad instead of writing actual words. This should come as relief to anyone who saw him writing nonsense during Nattie’s session and might have thought he was, I don’t know, an idiot.
“I basically will just scribble,” Tyler explains to the WAGS. “Now nothing particularly profound happens with these scribbles, as much as it’s the process of me scribbling that kind of allows me to just kind of tune in and connect. Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” say the ladies.
“No,” say the viewers.
After some lengthy scribbling and some serious windmill action…
…Tyler comes in contact with a man who died before what he felt was his prime and who has “an immense amount of love” for Kelly.
Jerry Lawler?
Nah, he’s very much alive nowadays, having beaten death by reverse decision.
The man turns out, Kelly says, to be her ex-boyfriend Andrew “Test” Martin, who, we will soon learn, is happy with his loved one’s life choices and thinks she should keep up the good work.
This man tells Tyler that he knows about “what happened in February” and that he is glad that Kelly moved on. Clearly, something wonderful had happened in February, or else something terrible that Kelly has since moved on from. But whatever it was, it happened in February of this or a previous year.
Kelly recognizes this ambiguous statement as a reference to her recent wedding.
It’s not exactly something you’d put on a Hallmark card, but “Andrew’s” posthumous and very cryptic congratulations will just have to do.
Kelly’s wedding, coincidentally, was a major storyline on her show, WAGS(Wives and Girlfriends of Sports Stars)…
…which airs on the same network as Tyler’s show…
…and whose camera crew was on hand to film Tyler’s guest appearance.
As Kelly wells up with emotion, you can actually pinpoint the second Tyler starts to regret what he’s doing with his life. Aaaand…
…now!
Tyler may have brought Kelly Kelly to tears, but who could get mad at a face like this, besides everybody?
By the time Tyler did a session with the Bellas, he wasn’t even trying anymore.
Their session is featured on a Season 3 episode of Hollywood Medium.
First, he makes the less-than-bold claim that an older male relative of the Bellas had declining health before he died, and had been hospitalized.
Another message Tyler gets contains a reference to Frank Sinatra, really going out on a limb that someone older and Italian would have liked Sinatra.
It’s enough to convince even a pair of hardcore skeptics like Brie and Nikki Bella.
This older man, whom the Bellas identify as their grandfather, is also with a child. Not a dead child, but a child who will be born within the next two years, presumably, but not necessarily, to one of the Bella Twins (whose ambitions of motherhood have been an ongoing story line on the E! Network’s Total Divas)
And Brie would announce her pregnancy just days after this episode’s air date, exactly as Tyler predicted! Sort of!
This is the kind of laser-like accuracy you can only get with really diligent scribbling.
Next, Tyler comes in contact with a male of about the same age as the Bellas who had a mishap (possibly fatal, possibly not; he doesn’t say) in a vehicle (possibly a car, or a truck, or a motorcycle; he doesn’t say) that involved somebody texting or drinking and driving or something.
Tyler gets it exactly right.
But most important of all is the question of whether this man approves of the Bellas’ career and life paths….
Tyler literally charms the pants off the Bellas, who don’t even notice that they’re the ones filling in all the details during the session.
They then deliver a ringing endorsement centered around how adorable he is.
If you’re interested in having Tyler make you cry as you recount your personal tragedies and heartbreaks before reassuring you with platitudes, you’d better act fast! The Hollywood Medium is already booked solid for the next six months of private gigs.
It’s fair to say that, when it comes to just how big a douchebag Tyler Henry is, he’s so much more than just a medium.
