Photo: Publicity Still of Sylvia Browne
Did she really predict the global pandemic?
By Bernadette Giacomazzo — Written on Mar 12, 2020
In her lifetime, she was one of the most popular psychics in the world. She was a frequent guest on talk shows, most notably The Montel Williams Show, and she even had an hour-long radio show. She was best known for helping the police locate missing persons — specifically, missing children — but there was one notable case that she got wrong.
Now, Kim Kardashian has shared a message from her, in which the author — who claimed to have psychic abilities — reportedly predicted the coronavirus outbreak. Is it really possible that this deceased psychic is sharing a message from the Great Beyond, in which she predicts the outbreak of this global pandemic?
Who was Sylvia Browne Let's take a look at what we know about this controversial figure.
1. Who was Sylvia Browne? She was a renowned psychic and author who passed away in 2013.
Brown first began her career as a psychic in 1974. She made many outrageous claims during her career, including that she descended from "the Angels." She also claimed to have a connection to at least four guardian angels, who helped her with her psychic predictions. Browne passed away in 2013 at the age of 77.
2. Her son, Chris Dufresne, continues on in his mother's tradition.
Even though Browne passed away in 2013, her son, Chris Dufresne, keeps his mother's website active and continues in her psychic tradition. Dufresne has been a professional psychic for over 30 years, and like his mother, he's a prolific author who has written seven books — two of which have appeared on the New York Times best-seller list.
3. Browne had a devout following and frequently appeared on talk shows claiming to know where missing persons were located.
Between 1991 and 2008, Browne cultivated a devout following thanks to her frequent appearances on the popular talk show, The Montel Williams Show. She would claim to know where missing persons were located and also claimed to know "the truth" behind many of the world's most infamous crimes. In one case, she even told "the truth" about the so-called "Lizzie Borden murders." However, she was heavily criticized for her incorrect predictions about several missing persons, including claiming that Amanda Berry — who was kidnapped by Ariel Castro, and held alive in his basement — was dead. In fact, after her death, an independent review of her approximately 115 "missing persons" predictions on The Montel Williams Show had a success rate of zero.
4. But she was convicted of theft charges in 1992.
In the late 1980s, the FBI began an extensive investigation into Browne's various businesses — for which she would apply for loans that subsequently caused "substantial losses" to banks. As part of what the government deemed to be unjust enrichment into these businesses, she also was involved in selling securities to a gold mine venture and she and her then-husband, Kenzil Dalzell Brown, ultimately pleaded no contest to a felony charge of "the sale of security without a permit." She was sentenced to one year of probation, while her then-husband served four months in jail.
5. Kim Kardashian shared a message from the psychic, in which she reportedly predicted the coronavirus outbreak.
On March 12, 2020, Kim Kardashian took to Twitter to share a paragraph from a book that Browne wrote back in 2008. Claiming that her sister, Kourtney, shared the passage in the family group chat, Kardashian claimed this was proof that Browne accurately predicted the current coronavirus outbreak. You can check out the passage below.
6. Does this claim hold up to scrutiny?
It's important to remember that Browne wrote the book, End of Days — from which this passage came — back in 2008. She wrote and published the book shortly after the SARS outbreak was contained. The question of how accurate this prediction is, of course, is dependent on the public's misunderstanding of what, exactly, the coronavirus is. Coronavirus infections are not new — however, the COVID-19 strain of the virus (which is what the current "outbreak" is focusing on) is new to human infection. And while the COVID-19 strain of the virus appears to be more lethal than the "standard" seasonal flu, some scientists believe that COVID-19 will eventually become little more than a "seasonal flu" as well. What's more, while there are some cases of coronavirus that are lethal, the vast majority of these cases are mild and asymptomatic.
On the surface, then, it appears to be a general statement that's been interpreted to be an accurate prediction. The question is: do you believe Sylvia Brown predicted the coronavirus?
Bernadette Giacomazzo is an editor, writer, publicist, and photographer whose work has appeared in Teen Vogue, People, Us Weekly, The Source, XXL, HipHopDX, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, BET.com, and more.