James Randi was a Canadian-American stage magician, author, and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims. Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from his foundation at 87.
Richard David Briers was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television.
Louis Sebastian Theroux is a British-American documentarian, journalist, broadcaster, and author. He has received three British Academy Television Awards and a Royal Television Society Television Award.
Paul Edward Theroux is an American novelist and travel writer who has written numerous books, including the travelogue The Great Railway Bazaar (1975). Some of his works of fiction have been adapted as feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast, which was adapted for the 1986 movie of the same name and the 2021 television series of the same name.
Uri Geller is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other illusions. Geller uses conjuring tricks to simulate the effects of psychokinesis and telepathy. Geller's career as an entertainer has spanned more than four decades, with television shows and appearances in many countries. Magicians have called Geller a fraud because of his claims of possessing psychic powers.
Martin Henry Bashir is a British former journalist. He was a presenter on British and American television and for the BBC's Panorama programme, for which he gained an interview with Diana, Princess of Wales under false pretences in 1995. Although the interview was much heralded at the time, it was later determined that he used forgery and deception to gain it.
Jarvis Branson Cocker is an English musician and radio presenter. As the founder, frontman, lyricist and only consistent member of the band Pulp, he became a figurehead of the Britpop genre of the mid-1990s. Following Pulp's hiatus, Cocker has pursued a solo career, and for seven years he presented the BBC Radio 6 Music show Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service.
Living with Michael Jackson is a television documentary in which the British journalist Martin Bashir interviewed the American singer Michael Jackson from May 2002 to January 2003. It was broadcast in the United Kingdom on ITV on 3 February 2003, and in the United States three days later on ABC, introduced by Barbara Walters. Jackson took Bashir on a tour of his home, Neverland Ranch, and discussed his family, unhappy childhood, plastic surgery and relationships with children.
Marcel Raymond Theroux is a British-American novelist and broadcaster. He wrote A Stranger in The Earth and The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes: A Paper Chase, for which he won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2002. His third novel, A Blow to the Heart, was published by Faber in 2006. His fourth, Far North, was published in June 2009. His fifth, Strange Bodies, was published in May 2013. He has also worked in television news in New York City and in Boston.
Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends is a television documentary series, in which Louis Theroux gives viewers the chance to get brief glimpses into the worlds of individuals and groups that they would not normally come into contact with or experience up close. In most cases this means interviewing people with extreme beliefs of some kind, or just generally belonging to subcultures not known to exist by most or just frowned upon. It was first shown in the United Kingdom on BBC2. In 2001, Theroux was awarded the Richard Dimbleby Award as well as the Best Presenter BAFTA for his work on the series.
Prussian Blue was an American pop music duo which was composed of Lynx Vaughan Gaede and Lamb Lennon Gaede, fraternal twins who were born on June 30, 1992, in Bakersfield, California. The duo was formed in early 2003 by their mother April Gaede, a member of the neo-Nazi organization National Alliance. Their music was described as racist and white supremacist, promoting neo-Nazi rhetoric such as Holocaust denial.
The Most Hated Family in America is a 2007 BBC documentary film written and presented by Louis Theroux about the family at the core of the Westboro Baptist Church. The organization was led by Fred Phelps and located in Topeka, Kansas. Westboro Baptist Church members believe that the United States government is immoral due to its tolerance of homosexuality; in addition, they protest at funerals of U.S. military killed in action with signs that display text such as "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers". With a BBC film crew, Theroux travelled to Kansas to spend time with members of the church and interview its leadership. Theroux interviews church leadership including Fred Phelps and Shirley Phelps-Roper.
The personal relationships of Michael Jackson have been the subject of public and media attention for several decades. He was introduced to the topic of sexual activity at the age of nine while a member of the Jackson 5. He and his brothers would perform at strip clubs, sharing the bill with female strippers and drag queens, and the sexual adventures of his brothers with groupies further affected Jackson's early life. It was reported that his first girlfriend was actress Tatum O'Neal, when he was a teenager in the 1970s. However, Tatum O'Neal had stated that their relationship was strictly platonic. In recent years, singer and actress Stephanie Mills had revealed herself to be Jackson’s first girlfriend, their relationship starting when they first met at the production of the The Wiz. Jackson was then rumoured to have entered a platonic relationship with actress and model Brooke Shields in 1984. Shields later stated that they both held an equal admiration for each other, but that he started to become more asexual and distant towards her.
Louis and the Brothel is a 2003 British documentary by Louis Theroux.
America's Most Hated Family in Crisis is a 2011 BBC documentary film presented and written by Louis Theroux, who revisits the family at the core of the Westboro Baptist Church. It is a follow-up to 2007's The Most Hated Family in America, also written and presented by Theroux. In 2019, Theroux made another follow-up, Surviving America's Most Hated Family, completing a trilogy of documentaries based on the church.
My Scientology Movie is a 2015 British documentary film about Scientology directed by John Dower, and written by and starring Louis Theroux. The film takes an unconventional approach to the subject matter, featuring young actors "auditioning" for parts playing high-profile Scientologists in scenes recreating accounts from ex-members about incidents involving senior church management. The Church of Scientology responded by putting the filmmakers under surveillance and denouncing the film.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) kept records on the American singer Michael Jackson, which were released under the Freedom of Information Act posthumously on December 22, 2009. In response to perceived threats against Jackson and allegations of child sexual assault made against him, the FBI made several investigations into Jackson, none of which led to charges.
Louis Theroux: Shooting Joe Exotic is a British documentary film presented by Louis Theroux. It was released on 5 April 2021 on BBC Two. The documentary, centred on former zoo owner and convicted felon Joe Exotic, looks back at unseen footage from Theroux's previous documentary that featured Exotic, America's Most Dangerous Pets (2011), and also features Theroux interviewing other people associated with Exotic, including his legal team, former colleagues, his estranged brother and niece, and Howard and Carole Baskin.
"Jiggle Jiggle" is a 2022 single by British-American journalist and documentary maker Louis Theroux, produced by Manchester-based DJ duo Duke & Jones. The song was created based on a rap trend that Theroux had been involved in, featuring a snippet of him rapping on the "Gangsta Rap" episode of the show Weird Weekends.
The Michael Jackson Interview: The Footage You Were Never Meant To See is a television documentary film released as a rebuttal to Living with Michael Jackson, in which the British journalist Martin Bashir interviewed the American singer Michael Jackson, from May 2002 to January 2003. Jackson felt betrayed by Bashir and stated that the documentary gave a distorted picture of his behavior and conduct as a father. On February 20, 2003, it aired on Fox in the United States, and on February 24, 2003, it aired on Sky One in the United Kingdom.
