Dr. Phil indicate denies claims that guests had been baited with treatment, alcohol to boost rankings

Representatives for the Dr. Phil indicate are balking at allegations that the daytime discuss indicate’s psychiatrist’s workers enabled guests with substance addictions to boost rankings.

The lengthy-running television program, which is lead by Phil McGraw, came below fire Thursday when STAT and The Boston Globe printed an exposé featuring claims from extra than one guests — including passe Survivor: China winner Todd Herzog, who struggled with alcohol abuse within the years after winning the indicate.

Amongst Herzog’s claims included what he said became as soon as the real memoir on the motivate of his headline-making look on this system in 2013, by which McGraw said, “I’ve below no instances talked to a guest who became as soon as closer to loss of life.” As viewers noticed, Herzog needed to be carried onto station sooner than his sit-down with the host because he became as soon as intoxicated (he registered a .263 blood alcohol insist material on the indicate and admitted he had drank a complete bottle of vodka).

But that bottle of vodka became as soon as equipped for Herzog in his dressing room by Dr. Phil producers, Herzog claimed, despite the truth that he had detoxed for two days in a resort paid for by producers and became as soon as sober when he arrived for his scheduled taping. He also alleged that he became as soon as given a Xanax to “aloof his nerves” sooner than filming.

But every other bottle of vodka regarded in his dressing room within the center of Herzog’s 1/3 look on Dr. Phil, Herzog alleged, though he said he didn’t drink it.

A consultant for McGraw and The Dr. Phil Report didn’t return PEOPLE’s build a matter to for observation, but Martin Greenberg — the indicate’s director of educated affairs — described Herzog’s claims and others made by passe guests and their households to STAT and The Boston Globe as “completely, unequivocally faux.”

“We enact now not enact that with this guest or every other,” Greenberg rapid STAT of Herzog’s account, later including, that Herzog became as soon as “medically supervised your complete time” by personnel from an unnamed therapy heart within the center of his taping time desk.

(Steve Thomason, the govt. director of the center Herzog attended in Texas, claims no one from that facility monitored Herzog in L.A., STAT and The Boston Globe file, explaining that doing so would violate their licenses).

“Addicts are infamous for lying, deflecting and trivializing,” Greenberg added. “But, if they are in pains when they arrive, then they had been in pains sooner than they arrived. The absolute most sensible swap is they are one step closer to getting assist, most frequently assist they may perhaps well well fair now not have even advance shut to affording.”

In several places within the file, households of passe guests — like Marianne Smith (whose niece Jordan regarded on the indicate) and Joelle King-Parrish (whose pregnant daughter Kaitlin regarded on the indicate) claimed that producers impressed them to head to Skid Row in Los Angeles to gain treatment, which the King-Parrishs did. Additionally they both claimed that the indicate didn’t present any scientific assist as they awaited taping.

“We may perhaps well well trot on and discuss Jordan L. or ten others. Identical truth. All had scientific supervision,” Greenberg said in denial, including that Kaitlin’s mother had allegedly “agreed to be a hundred% accountable for managing her daughter’s successfully being and doable withdrawal” and the particular person that filmed the Skid Row trudge, “simply documented the natural conduct she noticed, which would have occurred whether or now not she became as soon as there or now not.”

No longer all experiences had been depraved, though. Some interviewed for the memoir praised McGraw and the indicate for getting them the assist they want, like passe heroin addict Niki Dietrich.

“Few of us contact us fair to assert us how successfully issues are going,” the indicate wrote in a assertion to STAT and The Globe. “The truth that that you may perhaps well also ‘cherry make a selection’ three, or thirty, or three hundred guests for that subject, who peek responsible others for his or her jam or battle in life, is now not in the least frightful.”