A psychic once deemed the ‘world’s worst psychic’ due to her inaccurate predictions faced significant backlash for her incorrect forecasts made between 1999 and 2004.
Sylvia Browne gained notoriety for these predictions, leading to one of her former husbands, Gary Dufresne, speaking out against her through a website called stopsylvia.com.
Dufresne was her first ex-husband, from whom she divorced a year before she became a professional psychic. He accused her of deceit, referencing an instance during a tarot reading where he asked, “Sylvia, how can you tell people this kind of stuff? You know it’s not true, and some of these people actually are probably going to believe it.” He claimed she responded, “Screw ’em. Anybody who believes this stuff ought to be taken.” Browne countered his accusations by calling him “a liar and dark soul entity.”
During an appearance on The Montel Williams Show, a grandmother seeking help for her kidnapped six-year-old granddaughter, Opal Jo Jennings, asked Browne for guidance. Browne assured the grandmother that Opal was alive, suggesting she had been taken to Japan. However, Opal’s body was later found in Texas, confirming she had been killed the night she was abducted, and the mentioned place in Japan was found to be nonexistent.
In another appearance in 2002 on the same show, Browne told the mother of missing Holly Krewson that Holly was working as a stripper in Hollywood. In reality, Holly’s remains were discovered in San Diego in 1996.
In 2003, Browne told the parents of missing 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck that their son had been abducted by a dark-skinned man with dreadlocks and was dead. Four years later, Shawn was discovered alive, living with his captor, Michael J. Devlin, who was neither dark-skinned nor had dreadlocks. This incident prompted Dufresne to publicly criticize Browne.
In 2004, Louwana Miller called the show seeking answers about her daughter, Amanda Berry. Browne told her that Amanda was dead, a statement that deeply affected Miller, who died believing Browne was truthful. Contrarily, Amanda was found alive in 2013 after being held captive for a decade by Ariel Castro, along with two other girls.