Dr. Phil Allegedly Intimidated Staffers
Charlie, a former staff member who worked on over 180 episodes, alleged that fear was a "permanent" feeling among employees. The anxiety stemmed from the show’s producers, noted Charlie, who dubbed them “awful people.”
Meanwhile, Jack Mendoza, a production staffer from 2003-2007, called Dr. Phil McGraw "an intimidating person" to work for, adding, "You don’t want to end up in a room with Dr. Phil being screamed at."
Former Staffers Said Dr. Phil Show Left Guests Feeling Humiliated
Charlie further claimed, “The guests don’t realize how personal they are going to get and how bad it makes them look."
Bottom line was that, "Most of the guests, they’re set up to fail," Jack stated. "When they arrive to the studio, they are manipulated."
Among those who admitted to feeling that way was childhood sexual assault survivor Marcy Newberry, who appeared on Dr. Phil as a 17-year-old in 2017. As she recalled on Dirty Rotten Scandals, "Once we started filming, one of the producers wanted me to talk in detail about my brother molesting me for about four hours."
Sharing that she was blindsided with a video from her brother in which he described reaching his hand down her panties when she was asleep, the Boston Native said producers then brought her brother out for their first face-to-face in years.
“Honestly, just sitting there on the stage, I felt like I wanted to die," she reflected. "They don’t care about your mental health, they care about their show.”
Investigative reporter Evan Allen, who wrote about the series for The Boston Globe, said she heard “the same story again and again" when reaching out to guests about their experiences on the show. "People described feeling pressure from the producers," Allen stated. "A little bit entrapped almost like they didn’t know how to get out anymore.”
However, Allen recalled The Dr. Phil Show pushing back against the allegations when she asked them for comment. "We spoke to their head of Professional Affairs [Martin Greenberg]," Allen explained in Dirty Rotten Scandals, "he said that they’d done nothing wrong. ‘Dr. Phil has a very strong sense of not trying to exploit people.’ We said, ‘Well, do you have a responsibility to treat people medically when you bring them here?’ And he said, ‘Of course not, it’s a television show.’”
Greenberg added in their 2017 communication, "These people volunteer to come on. They beg to come on. And he tries to treat them with respect...and to give them the opportunity to get help if they want to do that. It’s not a complicated formula.”
Former Staffer Alleges Alcohol Was Left in Addicts' Dressing Rooms
Jack said producers seemed to prey on guests' weaknesses, alleging, "Say you have someone who has an alcohol problem, let’s just casually put vodka in the greenroom to then come out intoxicated.”
McGraw has denied allegations that production left alcohol in dressing rooms. The head of Professional Affairs also told Allen in her reporting that, “100 percent of guests agreeing to treatment receive medical supervision.”
Dave and Marla Thomas Alleged Dr. Phil Show Exploited Their Son
In 2017, Dave and Marla Thomas brought 27-year-old son DJ, who was diagnosed with bipolar 1 and schizophrenia, to The Dr. Phil Show in search of help, but found themselves lost in a “nightmare."
As Dave recalled, “We understand the exploitive nature of that type of show. It’s on TV, its goal is to make money. We were just overwhelmed and feeling hopeless.”
DJ’s parents alleged he was in a "clear" schizophrenic episode the day his episode taped, but the crew and McGraw went ahead with filming anyway.
"It felt like, ‘I want to make sure this boy has an episode on my show,'" Marla shared.
However, Greenberg, a psychologist who served as the show’s director of professional affairs, previously denied allegations of exploitation.
The show seeks to "educate, inform, inspire and entertain our viewers,” Greenberg told the Boston Globe in 2017, adding that “hundreds have e-mailed the show thanking us for helping them face or address an issue that either they, or a family member might be struggling with.”
Facilities Who Purchased Dr. Phil's Products Were Given Airtime
Allen's reporting that Dr. Phil heavily promoted treatment facility Inspirations because the business had purchased McGraw's self-developed virtual reality addiction program A Path to Recovery.
Inspirations bought the program and was later featured on the show
“Over a two-year period, they called police 180 times to report that kids were going missing from their facility, which is staggering," recalled of her investigation. "At the same time, the Dr. Phil show was touting them as the nation’s leading addiction treatment center. We felt that Inspirations was getting marketing from the Dr. Phil show, not because they were a good facility, but because they had purchased Path to Recovery.”
Allen even cited an audio recording from a Dr. Phil marketing call in which, “‘They said explicitly, ‘If you purchase Path to Recovery, then you have the chance to be on the show. Our job is to get the phones to ring, and the admissions hopefully follow.’ That shouldn’t be your job.”
At the time of Allen's investigation, the show told the Globe, “Any suggestion that appearances on Dr. Phil’s show are linked to the purchase or use of this program is false." Inspirations did not answer Allen's multiple requests for comment in 2017.
Dr. Phil Denies Wrongdoing
In response to the allegations made in the E! special, McGraw's lawyers told production in a statement, "Dr. McGraw categorically denies the allegations referenced in this film. These claims are not new and have been previously raised, thoroughly addressed and refuted. They are false, misleading and lack a factual foundation."
The statement continued, "Any implication that Dr. McGraw or the production of the program engaged in improper, unethical or unlawful conduct is inaccurate...The program operated with established standards and with the intent of providing resources, information and support to patients and audiences."