Theresa Caputo | |
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Born | Theresa Brigandi June 10, 1967 Hicksville, New York, U.S. |
Other names | Long Island Medium |
Occupation | Television personality |
Years active | 2011–present |
Known for | Long Island Medium |
Spouse | Larry Caputo (m. 1989;div. 2018) |
Children | Larry Caputo Jr., Victoria Caputo |
Part of a series on the |
Paranormal |
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Theresa Caputo (born June 10, 1967 [1] [2] [3] ) is an American psychic medium, best known for her TLC reality television series Long Island Medium . [4] [5]
Caputo, the daughter of Nicholas and Veronica Brigandi, [6] [7] was born and raised in Hicksville, New York, on Long Island. [8] She has a brother, Michael. [6] Their father was a volunteer firefighter and worked for the Nassau County Department of Public Works until 1980 when he was elected county water commissioner. [9]
Caputo was on the TLC reality TV series Long Island Medium from 2011 to 2019. [10] She is also the author of four books and tours under "Theresa Caputo Live! The Experience". [11] On January 25, 2024 Theresa returned to TV with her new series, Theresa Caputo: Raising Spirits on the Lifetime network.
Several people have raised doubts about her powers, including Inside Edition [12] and Jezebel . [13] D. J. Grothe called on Caputo to prove her abilities, [14] and James Randi said her claims were not true. [15]
In April 2012, the James Randi Educational Foundation awarded Caputo its Pigasus Award, a tongue-in-cheek award that seeks to expose parapsychological, paranormal or psychic frauds. [16] The James Randi Education Foundation has been critical of Caputo's work. [17]
A newspaper review of Caputo's performances at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury in late 2017 concluded, "For me, this unbelievable experience was simply that: not to be believed. 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. But my father probably could have told you that." [18]
Paranormal investigator Massimo Polidoro calls Caputo a "performer" and reports on an investigation done by Inside Edition and mentalist Mark Edward who attended one of her live shows in 2012. [19] In 2013, illusionist Criss Angel offered Caputo $1 million to prove her claims. [20]
On December 3, 2017, Theresa and her husband Larry Caputo jointly announced they were separating after 28 years of marriage. [21] They have two children, who have both appeared on the show: Larry Caputo Jr. and Victoria Caputo. [22] On June 27, 2018, Larry Caputo, who moved to Los Angeles following the separation from Theresa, announced he and Theresa were moving from separation to divorce. [23] In December 2018, Theresa Caputo announced the divorce had been finalized. [24]
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.
The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an American grant-making institution founded in 1996 by magician and skeptic James Randi. As a nonprofit organization, the mission of JREF includes educating the public and the media on the dangers of accepting unproven claims, and to support research into paranormal claims in controlled scientific experimental conditions. The organization announced its change to a grant-making foundation in September 2015.
Hicksville is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) within the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. The CDP's population was 43,869 at the time of the 2020 census.
John Edward McGee Jr. is an American television personality, writer and self-proclaimed psychic medium.
Sylvia Celeste Browne was an American writer and self-proclaimed medium and psychic. She appeared regularly on television and radio, including on The Montel Williams Show and Larry King Live, and hosted an hour-long online radio show on Hay House Radio.
Nina Kulagina, Ninel Sergeyevna Kulagina was a Russian woman who claimed to have psychic powers, particularly in psychokinesis. Academic research of her phenomenon was conducted in the USSR for the last 20 years of her life.
A spirit guide, in Spiritualism, is an entity that remains as a discarnate spirit to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnated individual.
The Pigasus Award is the name of an annual tongue-in-cheek award, which was presented by the late James Randi, a skeptic. The purpose of the award was to expose parapsychological, paranormal, and psychic frauds whom Randi had noted over the previous year. Randi usually made his announcements of the awards from the previous year on April 1.
Allison DuBois is an American author and purported medium. DuBois claims she used her psychic abilities to assist U.S. law enforcement officials in solving crimes, forming the basis of the TV series Medium.
Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spirit channelling, including séance tables, trance, and ouija. The practice is associated with spiritualism and spiritism. A similar New Age practice is known as channeling.
Rosemary Altea is a British author who describes herself as a medium and healer. She has appeared on various programs, including Larry King Live, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and featured in the series premiere of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! alongside mentalist Mark Edward. She has written six books and claims to have a "healing foundation".
Douglas James Grothe is an American skeptic who has served in leadership roles for both the Center for Inquiry (CFI) and the James Randi Educational Foundation. While he was at CFI, he hosted their Point of Inquiry podcast. After leaving Point of Inquiry he hosted the radio show and podcast For Good Reason. He is particularly interested in the psychology of belief and the steps involved in deception and self-deception. His writing has been published by both Skeptical Inquirer magazine and The Huffington Post. He also co-edited On the Beauty of Science, about the worldview and life's work of the Nobel laureate Herbert Hauptman.
Massimo Polidoro is an Italian psychologist, writer, journalist, television personality, and co-founder and executive director of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudosciences (CICAP).
Banachek is an English mentalist, magician, and "thought reader".
Chip Coffey is an American self-proclaimed psychic from Elmira, New York, currently living in Atlanta, Georgia. He appeared as a medium on various paranormal television programs, primarily Paranormal State and Psychic Kids. On Psychic Kids he acts as a mentor towards children who claim to have psychic abilities, primarily seeing ghosts. Coffey's claims of being able to communicate with the dead have been subject to criticism by skeptics. In 2019 it was announced that Coffey will be joining Travel Channel's Kindred Spirits as the third official cast member alongside Adam Berry and Amy Bruni for the fourth season in 2020.
The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge was an offer by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) to pay out one million U.S. dollars to anyone who could demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. A version of the challenge was first issued in 1964. Over a thousand people applied to take it, but none was successful. The challenge was terminated in 2015.
James Van Praagh is an American writer and television personality who describes himself as a clairvoyant and spiritual medium. He has written numerous books, including The New York Times bestseller Talking to Heaven. Van Praagh was a producer and screenwriter on the 2002 CBS primetime semi-autobiographical miniseries Living with the Dead starring Ted Danson. He also hosted a short-lived paranormal talk show called Beyond with James Van Praagh.
Mark Edward was an American mentalist and author. He wrote books on mentalism and séance theory and production, including Psychic Blues (2009), where he discussed working for the Psychic Friends Network. Wilson made appearances on television as both primary consultant and on-air performer in programming such as ABC's The Con, A & E's Biography: "Houdini, the Great Escape", NBC's The Other Side, and Psychic Secrets Revealed, the Sci-Fi Channel's Mysteries, Magic and Miracles, Disney's Forces Beyond, as well as two episodes of the Learning Channel's Exploring the Unknown. His featured segment as a spirit medium on the pilot episode of Showtime's Penn & Teller's Bullshit! series, titled "Speaking with the Dead", helped secure an Emmy Award nomination for that episode in 2002. He coined the term "grief vampire" as a description of alleged psychic mediums who prey on vulnerable people. Edward was a fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Long Island Medium is an American reality television series starring Theresa Caputo, a self-professed medium who claims she can communicate with the dead. Much of the program, which premiered on September 25, 2011, takes place in Hicksville, New York, though it often follows Caputo as she meets with clients in other areas.
Rose Mackenberg was an American investigator specializing in fraudulent psychic mediums, known for her association with Harry Houdini. She was chief of a team of undercover investigators who investigated mediums for Houdini in the 1920s. After Houdini's death, she continued to investigate spiritualist fraud for over 20 years and was known as an expert on the subject. She testified in court cases and before Congress and was interviewed in national magazines and on television.
Caputo, 49
Caputo, 47(subscription required)
My parents Nick and Ronnie...and my brother Michael...
Theresa's father Nicholas is 77 years old and is from Hicksville, NY which is where he raised Theresa and her brother Michael with his wife, Veronica.
I was born and raised on Long Island in Hicksville, NY.
The Long Island Medium is just another charlatan. Any time she wants, we'll put her through a series of tests and I'll offer a million-dollar challenge to her. And you can put that in black and white.(subscription required)
Nassau County Supreme Court records show that on Dec. 12, attorneys of the Garden City firm Gassman Biamonte Betts filed a standard Request for Judicial Intervention for plaintiff Theresa R. Caputo in an uncontested divorce from Lawrence P. Caputo. No disposition date is listed in the online record.