The Most Controversial As Seen On TV Celebs

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Since the earliest days of the medium, commercials have been an integral part of television as advertisers utilize all manner of psychological manipulation to sell viewers their wares. One unique sub-genre of television advertising can be witnessed in the "As Seen on TV" commercials, hawking such wondrous gems as the Shoedini (essentially a shoehorn on a stick) and the Potty Putter (which, yes, is a mini golf set you play with while you're on the toilet).

Sometimes the people who shill this stuff wind up becoming celebrities in their own right. Fitness guru Richard Simmons, for example, not only made zillions by selling diet plans and exercise videos on TV, he also became a ubiquitous talk show guest with a lengthy roster of screen credits.  

But these infomercial stars detoured from fame to infamy by becoming embroiled in scandal. As a result, they traded late night TV for everything from lawsuits to federal fraud investigations to jail sentences and, in extreme cases, even death. Keep on reading to find out the shady truth behind the most controversial As Seen on TV celebs.

It was impossible to watch television in the mid-2000s without hearing ubiquitous pitchman Billy Mays yelling "Hi, Billy Mays here!" at top volume while hawking everything from OxiClean to Hercules Hooks to ShamWow knockoff Zorbeez.

It all came to an end for Mays when he was found dead in his Tampa, Fla. home in June 2009. He was just 50 years old. NPR reported a weird wrinkle in the story when it was revealed that Mays' death came one day after he was aboard an airplane that "blew out a tire" while landing, with Mays reportedly smashed on the head by an object that fell from an overhead bin during the rough touchdown. An even weirder wrinkle came to light after an autopsy was performed. As CNN reported, the medical examiner determined the cause of death to be "a lethal arrhythmia of the heart caused by hypertensive and arteriosclerotic heart disease," and "further concluded that cocaine use caused or contributed to the development of his heart disease, and therefore contributed to his death."

But wait! According to the Chicago Tribune, Mays' wife found the autopsy results to be "so upsetting" that a second autopsy was performed. This autopsy found that "acute cocaine intoxication" was not a factor in his death and that "the use of cocaine by Mr. Mays appears to have occurred a remote time several days before his death."

For more than a decade, beginning in the late 1990s, television viewers were dazzled by the psychic predictions of Miss Cleo. With her thick Jamaican patois and exotic Caribbean wardrobe, Miss Cleo invited callers to phone her Psychic Readers Network to receive the answers to their most pressing life questions.

In 2002, the FTC charged Miss Cleo's operation with "deceptive advertising, billing and collection practices," alleging that the callers were billed $4.99 per minute, and were routinely left on hold for several minutes — with the billing commencing immediately at the start of each call. According to Slate, the company was also hit with numerous lawsuits.

As it turned out, Miss Cleo wasn't actually Jamaican, and had no psychic abilities. As The Washington Post reported after her 2016 death, she was actually Los Angeles-born actress Youree Dell Harris, who had been hired to play the role of Miss Cleo; she was never charged in any of the lawsuits as she was strictly an employee. And while the company that hired her raked in an estimated $1 billion, Harris herself didn't see any of that wealth. According to a 2009 interview, at that time Harris was living in Florida and still doing psychic readings as Miss Cleo, charging $75-$250 per reading. She didn't refer to herself as a psychic, however, but a "voodoo priestess." 

Self-proclaimed "King of Infomercials" Don Lapre made a fortune through his late-night TV infomercials, claiming he could rake in $50,000 a week by "placing tiny classified ads in the newspaper." He subsequently branched out into hawking a health supplement that he declared to be the Greatest Vitamin in the World. However, it wasn't just the vitamins he was selling. As People reported, the whole thing was actually a multilevel marketing scam promising people could earn up to $1,000 a week by simply setting up a website like this one to advertise the product. Once they'd done that, Lapre promised, they'd simply sit back and wait for the checks to come rolling in.

In 2011, The Arizona Republic reported that Lapre was indicted by a grand jury, and "charged with 41 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and promotional money laundering." Over the course of his alleged schemes, he reportedly bilked some 220,000 people out of almost $52 million. If found guilty, Lapre faced fines of $250,000 to $500,000, and up to 25 years in a federal penitentiary.

Lapre was never sentenced. Days before he was set to stand trial, reported CBS News, he was found dead of an apparent suicide in his jail cell. 

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

In such books as Getting Yours: The Complete Guide to Government Money, Matthew Lesko wrote extensively about the vast array of government-sponsored programs offering grants for various endeavors. Lesko subsequently took his shtick to late-night infomercials, wearing a suit adorned with question marks — not unlike Batman foe the Riddler — to sell his books purporting to instruct people on how they can access "free money."

However, a 2004 report from NBC News highlighted some problematic aspects of Lesko's claims that billions of government dollars are ripe for the taking. In fact, the New York State Consumer Protection Board issued a press release warning TV viewers that Lesko's claims were exaggerated. His primary goal, the group claimed, was convincing consumers to plunk down $37.95 for a copy of his latest book.

While the agency conceded the information in Lesko's books was not entirely incorrect, the claims in his infomercials contained "wild exaggerations" that they deemed deceptive. As Consumer Protection Board executive director Teresa A. Santiago explained, Lesko's claims that the federal government has billions in "hidden money" that people can use to "get out of debt" is "simply not true... These are entitlement programs... and the average person cannot apply for them."

Ponytailed fitness guru Tony Little became a celebrity in the 1990s thanks to his infomercials promoting his Gazelle exercise machine and his Target Training System. As Little told CNBC in 2016, those infomercials had generated more than $3 billion in sales.

Little should have paid a little more attention, however, to who he hired to look after his finances. In 2011, Tampa Bay Newspapers reported that his former company controller, Mark Schreiber, was arrested and charged with embezzling $583,379 from his companies. "According to Mr. Little, they were beginning the process of dismissing him. Before they could do that, he resigned abruptly," Pinellas Park Police Department spokesman Brian Unmisig told the newspaper.

The following year, the Tampa Bay Times reported that Schreiber entered a guilty plea, admitting he wrote himself "more than 150 checks" totaling $658,456.28. He was sentenced to three years in the slammer and 10 years probation upon his release. In addition, a lien was placed on him for the amount he stole, while he was also ordered to undergo treatment for gambling addiction. "I would wish to see him spend time for his crime," Little said in a deposition.

In the late 1990s, fitness trainer Billy Blanks developed his own blend of aerobics-style dancing and martial arts, which he dubbed Tae Bo and promoted via TV infomercials. The venture was wildly successful, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars and providing Blanks himself with a reported personal net worth of $30 million.

Blanks' former manager, Seth Estroff, felt he was owed a piece of that pie. As the Los Angeles Times reported, in 1999 Estroff sued over what he claimed were unpaid royalties from Tae Bo videos. While the suit was settled the following year, another seemingly unrelated lawsuit led Blanks to sue his legal team, alleging malpractice when lawyers missed a filing deadline that cost him the case. According to the Chicago Tribune, Blanks emerged victorious, and in 2005 was awarded a whopping $35 million in damages. "This verdict represents justice," Blanks said in a statement. "In many respects, our trust in the system has been restored."

That trust was shaken in 2009, when Courthouse News reported that an appeals court reversed $25 million of that judgement. Blanks' subsequent attempt to appeal the appeal was unsuccessful, with Metropolitan News-Enterprise reporting that the California Supreme Court voted 6-0 to deny Blanks' request that his appeal be reviewed.