| Char Margolis | |
| Nationality: | American |
Char Margolis is an American writer and psychic medium. Margolis's claims to have paranormal abilities have been criticised by several media outlets which suggest she uses standard cold reading and hot reading tricks to perform her readings.
Maclean's magazine reported in 2010 that Margolis "got her start in Canada on The Dini Petty Show in the late 1980s... and also guested on Camilla Scott’s and Vicki Gabereau’s shows in their heyday" (on CBC Radio). Maclean's also reported that in 2010, Margolis charged US$600 for a 45-minute phone reading, and US$825 for an in-person consultation.
In 2000, on Live With Regis, Margolis revealed Kelly Ripa's second pregnancy, which Ripa had been keeping secret.[1] [2]
From 2002 to 2010, Margolis appeared on the Dutch television program Char on RTL 4.[3] [4] In a 2004 interview on the Larry King Show, she said was scheduled to record the prime-time show in The Netherlands for six weeks in August. In an article, "Char, Char, Charlatan", Henk Westbroek reported in DePers.nl that in 2005 he was a guest on that show, and Margolis used cold reading and hot reading techniques on him. Westbroek said that this experience turned him into an unbeliever regarding her abilities.
In a notable 2011 appearance on WGN News, Margolis appeared to struggle when allegedly communicating with the "spirit world" on behalf of WGN anchor Robin Baumgarten.[5] After initiating her session with ambiguous references to names starting with an "M or a J," a statement widely associated with cold reading, Baumgarten hesitantly identified her daughter, Mary.
When Margolis realized that her supposed premonition referred to Baumgarten's daughter, who was alive, she attempted to change course by asking if someone related to Baumgarten's husband might be deceased. Upon realizing this line of inquiry was a dead end, she attempted to quickly reverse course once more by first asking if her daughter was currently involved in a project and then asking if she had a boyfriend. These suggestions were subsequently met with ridicule and incredulous laughter by Baumgarten's co-anchors, Dean Richards and Larry Potash, when it was revealed that Baumgarten wasn't aware of any projects that her daughter was working on and that she was only six years old.
When Potash subsequently asked her to account for "failing miserably here today," Margolis first sought to defend her reading and then offered to conduct a private reading for Potash, to which he agreed before facetiously adding, "I hope you hit it out of the park as well as you did here today". In a follow-up interview with Potash as part of the podcast Nobody's Listening, Potash alleged that Margolis followed through on her offer to conduct another reading privately and "failed miserably again".[6]
She appeared on the sixth episode of Untold with Maria Menounos on E! in 2014, in which she was interviewed about being a psychic to Hollywood stars.[7]
Since 2015, Margolis has hosted a podcast, CharVision.[8] [9] In 2019, she had a series on WOW Presents Plus called Reading Queens, in which she read for former contestants of RuPaul's Drag Race.[10] [11]
In 2021, Margolis was a guest adviser in the 10th episode of season 13 of RuPaul's Drag Race.