10 Times Dr. Phil Found Himself Swept Up In Legal Drama With Former TV Show Guests

The 1990s and 2000s were a golden age of daytime television, giving us all sorts of new celebrities who sat down at their desks each day and told us about the world. The casual cruelty of hosts like Jerry Springer had given way to folks like Rosie O'Donnell, who — despite her later reputation as a politically-active celebrity unafraid to speak her mind — earned a reputation on '90s television as "The Queen of Nice." And then there was Oprah Winfrey, the woman who changed everything. Winfrey had grown from her early years as a reporter into the host of one of the biggest television shows of all time. She was so culturally influential that she could send products flying off the shelves, make books into instant best-sellers, and launch the careers of a whole host of other hosts. The most infamous character to emerge from Winfrey's media empire is Dr. Phil McGraw, who began his career on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

For a while, "Dr. Phil" was a show where people could see a no-nonsense clinical psychologist give people the kind of tough love they needed to get out of the ruts they'd been stuck in. As the show lasted, the content became more confrontational. "Dr. Phil" took things way too far sometimes, engineering situations that embarrassed people on television instead of genuinely trying to help them grow. As a result, McGraw has occasionally found himself swept up in legal drama with former guests, forced to answer for the way he treated people who trusted him on television.

If you've ever seen an episode of "Dr. Phil," there's a good chance you're familiar with the many episodes that center around young women behaving badly. After all, "Dr. Phil" was the first place we first heard the infamous catchphrase "Cash me outside, how bout dat?" that led to the transformation of Danielle Bregoli, aka Bhad Bhabie, a troubled teen who turned her daytime television infamy into a long-lasting career as a rapper, model, and influencer. In the early 2010s, a young woman named Josie Goldberg starred on several episodes of the show. Dr. Phil McGraw consulted with public relations maven Kelly Cutrone about Goldberg, giving Goldberg the opportunity to work as an assistant to address her self-described "spoiled and entitled" personality. Goldberg's headstrong appearance was such a hit that she was brought back for several follow-ups, and Goldberg eventually came to feel she was owed residual payments for her appearances.

After all, Goldberg is a member of SAG-AFTRA, the actors union that usually organizes royalty payments for people who appear on television. In 2019, Goldberg sued McGraw, alleging that her appearances entitled her to more than $10,000, including damages after Cutrone suggested Goldberg needed mental health treatment. Although Goldberg did not win the monetary payments she sought, her case resulted in Goldberg owning the "Spoiled and Entitled" brand. "I might of lost my pension, fees and healthcare but I own my brand and licensing," she told The Daily Look Magazine. "Dr Phil can't do any more Spoiled and Entitled shows without my permission!"

While Dr. Phil McGraw tried to give "spoiled and entitled" adult Josie Goldberg a job to fix her personality, that wasn't the case when McGraw claimed to be helping troubled teens. At the height of "Dr. Phil," the former psychologist often recommended that misbehaving youth be sent to various education camps that were supposed to teach young people how to act. In fact, these businesses seem to have been full of abuse. The troubled teen industry has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, especially after Paris Hilton launched advocacy work against child abuse in these residential facilities.

Hilton coming forward with her own experience inspired Hannah Archuleta, a former guest on "Dr. Phil" who appeared on an episode in October 2019. Archuleta sued McGraw for negligence, alleging that the TV doctor told her parents before appearing live, "Hannah needs to go to the Ranch to have any chance at a good life. It's that serious we help her right now and today" (via Rolling Stone). The ranch in question was Turn-About Ranch, where Archuleta was allegedly assaulted. "I expected to be treated with understanding. Instead, I experienced retaliation from the ranch after I spoke up, in what appeared to me to be punishment for reporting my abuse," Archuleta said in a video statement on Fox 13 News Utah. The case was dismissed in 2022, and McGraw counter-sued Archuleta for $400,000 in legal fees.

When Kaden Mahaffa appeared on "Dr. Phil," she thought she'd be backing up her boyfriend as he came clean about being abused by his mother and grandmother. Instead, show producers shifted the focus after learning that Mahaffa identifies as somebody who has special abilities. Her eventual lawsuit explained that Mahaffa told producers, "[She] possessed various supernatural powers, including the ability to communicate with the dead, read people's minds, see with X-ray vision, and intuitively write ancient languages, among other things" (via Courthouse News Service).

McGraw took the opportunity to retool the episode around Mahaffa, asking her to prove her psychic powers to the audience. She was, of course, unable to do so, to mockery from the studio audience. "Any reasonable person — let alone a clinical psychologist like Defendant McGraw — would immediately recognize that Ms. Mahaffa was a mentally-ill individual in crisis, not someone to be exploited on a national TV show," the complaint stated. The incident resulted in Mahaffa being hospitalized after a breakdown. The lawsuit was ultimately thrown out by the court on free speech grounds. Justice Victoria Chavez, who reviewed an appeal, felt that the show's actions were protected. "The law is unequivocal that widely broadcast productions such as the show are of public interest," she wrote (via KFI-AM). "In addition, mental health issues and matters of health in general are undeniably of interest to the public.”

While Dr. Phil McGraw has been on the receiving end of numerous lawsuits from past guests, he isn't afraid to take legal action himself when the situation demands it. Radio host and comedian Kelly Manno wrote on her blog back in 2008 that she'd pranked McGraw, trying to get him back for having been unpleasant to her fellow employees. She applied to be on an episode of "Dr. Phil" about love triangles, inventing a fictional scenario she knew would catch the eye of producers. "They let us on, we pulled it off, Dr Phil found out, got p*****, they swore the show would never air again," she wrote. "We almost got sued by paramount." 

By the time she told the story on The Courtney Show in 2025, Manno gave more details. Paramount Pictures had actually served her legal papers, she said, but they found themselves unable to prove that the radio station she worked for was involved in the situation. "The only thing they could do is to a 20-year-old girl," she said. "So, they dropped the lawsuit, under the guise that I signed all this paperwork saying that I would never talk about it again." Almost two decades after the incident, however, Manno was no longer worried about being held to the terms of her McGraw-mandated NDA. "If Dr. Phil sues me again, that's content!" the TikTok comedian laughed. "That would be the greatest thing to happen to me."

While "Dr. Phil" was on the air, Dr. Phil McGraw was a big proponent of sending at-risk youth to so-called "troubled teen" programs. Danielle Bregoli (aka Bhad Bhabie) experienced a difficult time at one of these camps,  and the practice got McGraw sued by Hannah Archuleta. However, that wasn't the only time one of McGraw's former television guests pursued legal remedies for their troubled-teen experience. Bregoli and Archuleta were sent to the same place — Turn-About Ranch — but McGraw also promoted other, similar facilities. 

In 2014, McGraw was sued by Terri and David Myers, parents who sent their daughter to a place called Island View on McGraw's recommendation. Their underage daughter had been put on "Dr. Phil" for seeking sex with older men online, and the parents alleged that McGraw did not seem sympathetic to the fact that she'd been abused by a man she then saw killed in front of her. Instead, he considered her behavior a failure on the part of her parents, and he told them to send her to Island View. At the facility, Terri and David alleged that their daughter was physically abused by guards. "[They] mangled her arm, causing severe and irreparable orthopedic and neurological damage," the complaint read (via TheWrap). The suit was tossed out of court with one judge writing (via Justicia), "The allegations do not establish any duty owed by any of the Defendants to the Plaintiffs."

The year before "Dr. Phil" went off the air, a toxic workplace scandal erupted that Dr. Phil McGraw couldn't escape. Dozens of employees came forward to accuse the show's culture of being abusive behind the scenes, including allegations that staffers were instructed to lean into racist stereotypes and to keep participants in the show from taking their medication. While McGraw himself wasn't accused of wrongdoing in that round of scandal, the TV doctor had already faced lawsuits claiming that he behaved badly when the cameras weren't rolling. 

A woman named Shirley Rae Dieu sued him in 2009, alleging that while she was seeing him as a patient, he locked the door. "[I was] forced to be in the same room with a completely live naked man while he exposed his entire naked body, genitals and all," she alleged. Dieu insisted that she'd been brainwashed and that an episode of the show about her had been highly edited. "You have no idea what I and this other woman went through," Dieu told People. The other woman was named Crystal Matchett, and she signed on to the lawsuit shortly after Dieu spoke with the outlet. It took several years to work its way through the courts, but in 2011, CBS and McGraw settled the lawsuit with the two women. Terms of the deal were not made public, leaving fans unclear about how much truth the allegations contained.

In 2005, a young woman named Natalee Holloway disappeared while on vacation in Aruba. The incident became a media sensation, as everyone rushed to find their own angle on the story; for example, legal commentary on of the case was pivotal in the transformation of Nancy Grace. Dr. Phil McGraw tried to get in on the rush and talk to people who were involved. He sent a private investigator to speak with two brothers named Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, who were reportedly among the last people to see Holloway alive.

The private investigator recorded the conversation, and "Dr. Phil" later aired portions of it that suggested the brothers had slept with Holloway on the night she disappeared. When the brothers sued McGraw, they alleged that the recording had been manipulated to suggest that they had something to do with her death. "[It was edited to] create false, incriminating, and defamatory statements that the plaintiffs engaged in criminal activity against Natalee Holloway," the complaint read, according to WTHR. The lawsuit dragged on for nearly a decade before finally being dismissed for good in 2015. While the Kalpoe brothers were arrested numerous times on suspicion of having been involved in Holloway's disappearance, they were never convicted. Their friend, Joran Van Der Sloot, who had been with them that night, finally confessed to killing her in 2023.

"Everything starts with authenticity," Dr. Phil McGraw once said (via YouTube). While he applied the philosophy to various areas of his life, insisting that he tried to live as authentically as possible, McGraw's talk show appears to have engaged in some inauthentic ways of getting guests to show up at the studio. (In the context of authenticity, fans should also consider the question of whether Dr. Phil is a real doctor.) Matthew Barasch appeared on "Dr. Phil" in a 2014 episode that he believed would focus on his allegation that he's been repeatedly stalked and framed by law enforcement. 

The show contacted Barasch's local police department, who claimed to have no record of an incident where he claimed to have found someone on his roof. "I'm shocked," Barasch told McGraw on air (via YouTube). McGraw also had him list out likely suspects, which included the mafia, a supposed billionaire ex-boyfriend, or maybe even Scientologists. When the episode made it seem like he might be suffering from paranoid delusions, Barasch sued for $100 million in damages. A representative for the show told TMZ, "This guest was treated with the utmost dignity and respect, and every effort was made to help him find some peace in his life." The lawsuit, which dragged on until 2018, did not go in Barasch's favor.

Just about everyone with any passing understanding of American pop culture knows that the O.J. Simpson trial was one of the biggest celebrity scandals to completely rock the 1990s. It sure seemed like the former football player had murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. However, in one of the most stunning verdicts of all time, O.J. was not found guilty. That said, he later went to prison for years for armed robbery and kidnapping, after he held someone hostage in an attempt to steal back his own sports memorabilia.

The events that led to his conviction involved a dealer named Thomas Riccio, who was interviewed by Dr. Phil McGraw on "Dr. Phil." Riccio later sued over the episode, specifically taking issue with the way promotional commercials were cut together to make it seem like he might've been involved in a plot to entrap Simpson. "The result of defendants' editing of my statements was that the promotional spots made me look like a shady character that could not be trusted," he said in a court statement (via NBC Los Angeles). "I was at first shocked at what had been done to my statements, which was replaced by feelings of extreme humiliation." Riccio insisted that, although he'd secretly recorded the incident with O.J. in the Vegas hotel room, it wasn't what the show made it out to be. While the claims of defamation were thrown out of court, Riccio later settled with McGraw for an undisclosed amount.

Before Dr. Phil McGraw ended his longtime run on daytime TV in 2023, he found himself swept up in legal trouble with past guests who were officially part of the show, as well as others indirectly involved. In one incident, McGraw was on the receiving end of a lawsuit from somebody who only appeared on camera from a distance as one of the members of the studio audience. Back in 2007, a man named Neal David Sutz attempted to sue "Dr. Phil" for a cool $100 million, alleging that when he attended as an audience member in 2003, everyone was asked whether they had any psychiatric illnesses. 

Audience members were asked to sign a legal waiver confirming that they had no existing mental health diagnoses and were receiving psychiatric care. At the time, Sutz opened up about having bipolar disorder, at which point the show's producers treated him differently and asked him not to speak with McGraw, the show's employees, or speak out as an audience member. "I was the only one singled out when it was made clear that I had bipolar disorder. As soon as they found out I had a mental illness, they said, 'Can't speak,'" Sutz told the Associated Press (via Today). Sutz and the show's producers had previously come to a "non-monetary" agreement back in 2004 to settle the concern. While Sutz was initially satisfied by the show's promise to add a mental health disclosure after each episode, he filed to dismiss this settlement and sue for $100 million on the grounds that "Dr. Phil" did not uphold said agreement.