Ricki Lake Lives for Love

Cold Open

Shoshana: Okay. We ask everybody the same first question. Tell me who you are and what you do.

Ricki: Oh my gosh. Okay. It's kind of a trick question.My name is Ricky Lake and I am a lot of things.

Ricki Lake has been in the public eye since she was 19 years old, when she starred as Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 movie, Hairspray.

Hairspray: Mom. Dad. Oh, Penny, my best friend. I'm so happy. Finally, all of Baltimore knows I'm big blonde and beautiful.

Then, from 1993 to 2004, she hosted The Ricki Lake Show.

Ricki Lake Show: Oh boy. You know, it is hard to believe, but this is the 10th year that our show has been on the air

Shoshana: So there is so much that you and I could talk about, but I wanna focus this conversation on love and loss and finding love again. So can we start with the story of how you first met Christian?

Ricki: Yes, I love talking about Christian. I, I feel like I am a profoundly better human being. Having had him, loved him and losing him.

Christian Evans was Ricki’s second husband. She met him when she was 42 years old.

Ricki: So this is, going back 15 years, this is 2010. My sons were about nine and 13. And I was going through a very traumatic thing with my family, personal stuff with my, my parents. And, um, I was needing a change. I wasn't working necessarily at that time, and I decided I needed to live at the beach in Malibu.

Ricki: So I rented a little beach house in Malibu with my two sons. It was 900 square feet. It was a – it was like a boat. It was like a wooden boat. And it was during that time that I met Christian through my best friend. I wasn't really interested in him. And then three weeks after I'd lived in this house, um. It burned down. I accidentally set it on fire

Shoshana: Oh my gosh.

Ricki: And the fire happened, my birthday was three days later and I had a party, a last minute birthday party because basically I survived this very traumatic experience and I invited everyone that was in my life at that time to come to my other house, ‘cause I had another house, to have a celebration. And he came to that party and that night we got together, intimately, physically. And I had said to him, I'm gonna be frank. I said, if you stick it in, you're gonna be my man. Those words verbatim.

And he was. Ricki and Christian were together for six and a half years, starting with that birthday party after the house fire.

Ricki: In my way of thinking, now in hindsight, I feel like it was divine intervention because it is what brought Christian and me together as a couple.

Ricki: We had an incredibly special relationship that was kind of on another, I mean, it was on another level and Christian used to liken himself, an alien. He would say, I'm not of this earth. I'm not of this, you know, human form. People don't understand me. At that time I didn't know. The depth of what he was talking about, but he struggled with mental illness. He was bipolar and he struggled with chronic pain. He had learning differences. He was, you know, he's special. He was special in every sense of the word.

Shoshana: How did he tell you that he had a mental health issue?

Ricki: He told me immediately. He told me in the very beginning of our relationship, I have been diagnosed as bipolar. And I, my reaction was like, oh yeah, we all have our stuff. I'm, I'm a control freak. Like, I didn't, I didn't understand, I didn't Google it. I just kind of like, he was opening up to me. I assumed it was like a character flaw, like I've got my character flaws. I didn't understand the complexity and the struggles that he had been through. And I, I, I, I wanna like be really clear, he was amazing. He was an amazing human, and yet he had these really intense struggles.

Despite everything he was struggling with, Ricki says Christian was a man of his word. From the night they became intimate, he was her man.

Ricki: Madly in love with me, madly in love with my children. And you know, I found out after the fact he was planning to take his life at that time, he was struggling. He was in a downward after a a, a manic episode. He was in the depression part and he was, he was planning, like putting all his ducks in a row to end his life then. And that night when I made him commit to me, he put that on the back burner and committed to me as his partner. I mean, I saved his life. Like I actually saved his life. Then I saved it one more time, and then the third time I couldn't save him.

Christian Evans died by suicide in February of 2017.

He was a jewelry designer. And even now, more than seven years after his death, Ricki still keeps him close to her heart.

Ricki: What I'm wearing today is, um, a chakra pendant that he designed, that he gave to me. I love it so much. I really want to just keep his memory alive. He was so fricking amazing.

But I don't want you to think that this is an entirely sad story. Because Ricki found love again. And it's a love she believes Christian wanted for her.

In January of 2022, Ricki married Ross Birmingham. And he's now the center of her life...and her Instagram feed.

Ricki: And it's so fun, like talking to you Shoshana, about this. I haven't thought about it because I'm in a new marriage. My new beautiful partner who is like the pinnacle of partnership and love. And so I do feel, I feel very strongly that Christian brought Ross to me.

And this is what I wanted to talk to Ricki about. Because she’s never been shy about celebrating her love for Christian...right alongside her love for Ross.

I’m Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider and this is Before We Go. This season, we’re in conversation with people from all walks of life, exploring how we live alongside mortality.

Today’s episode: Ricki Lake Lives for Love.

Act I

Ricki Lake and Christian Evans got married in April of 2012. It was two years into their relationship, but Ricki still didn't understand the full extent of Christians' mental illness.

Ricki: You know, it's really, in hindsight, you see things so much more clearly. And so his relationship with his mom and his sister, he would keep them at bay from me because he didn't want them tipping me off on what they'd been through with his prior hospitalizations and so we really, like, I just was naive and I was in love and we had a great thing and he wasn't trying to hide things from me, but like he – he thought that he had turned a new leaf. You know, he thought he had overcome this.

Christian still struggled with chronic pain that made it hard for him to get out of bed in the morning. And looking back now, Ricki recognizes that his mental health could have benefited from more care and attention.

Ricki: Regular sleep, regular eating, not self-medicating, not traveling out of time zones. And you know, we, we went to Ibiza a lot. Ibiza was our place that we loved. And, you know, that nightlife and that, I mean, it's just a, it's the worst place for someone who is struggling with trying to keep their mental health in check, you know?

Four years into the relationship, something started to shift in Christian’s behavior.

Ricki: So in the beginning of this mania that he was tripping into, he was suddenly getting up with me in the morning and doing yoga with me. he had all these ideas and he was suddenly inspired. And so I'm like, oh my God, my guy is so great. He's got these incredible ideas and he's making connections and he's selling his jewelry and oh my gosh, you know.

Ricki: And it was his sister who could tell from a Facebook post. She could tell from what he put on Facebook that he was going into an episode, and she called me one day and she was crying and she's like, I think my brother is having a psychotic break. Watch for him not sleeping. Watch for him not eating, watch for him having grandiose thoughts. Watch for like boom, boom, boom.

Ricki: And everything she said was happening. And what happened in his case was he just kept getting higher and higher and higher and higher, he thought he could fly. He thought he could time travel. He left the Range Rover I bought him on the side of the highway outside of Las Vegas because he didn't need it, because he could time travel and he could cure cancer with his hands, and he could, and there was no, there was no rationalizing, there was no bringing him back. There was nothing I could do.

Ricki hired a private investigator to follow Christian to make sure he was safe. At one point, he was admitted for a 72 hour involuntary psychiatric evaluation for a person who's deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.

But at the end of the 72 hours, Christian was released. And nothing had changed.

Shoshana: I can only imagine how frightening and disorienting that must have been for both of you, right. I

Ricki: It was terrifying. For him, I mean, he's numb to it, you know, like, and I now can look back at pictures of him, I could see it in his eyes when he was manic and in a, in a psychotic state. I could see it clear as day. It was like two different people. It was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and he turned on me. And for a man who was so kind and so gentle with me and so loving, he suddenly would like be sharp and be like a little nasty. Not nasty. It's, it's 'cause it was subtle. It was more subtle than that. But he would get curt with me and I just didn't recognize this side of him and it was really hurtful and I was doing everything for him. So it was, it was very jarring. And I, you know, and, and looking back on all of the, the hardship and the experience of, of even his, his death, his, his suicide, it was more shocking the first episode than ultimately him dying .

Ricki: Christian was giving away my money. He would write out checks to, to all to amazing charities. Like, like Christian had such an amazing heart and he wanted to save the world, but all the checks, stacks of checks that were my money, that it was $1,111 and 11 cents. And there were like 10 of them. And I'm like, he can't be doing this. He, you know, We were separated. We weren't speaking. I was divorcing him. I had to divorce him because he was a liability. Both like he was a danger to himself. He wouldn't get help, and I was concerned he would harm someone else. He was blowing through my money, so I had to protect myself, financially.

And then, as often happens with people who suffer from bipolar disorder, the manic phase ended. And then came the crash.

Ricki: So basically what a manic episode in his case, in our case, is that it would like last about three months. It was always in the fall equinox. It was always around my birthday. It was usually after we came back from Ibiza. We would have the summer there, he'd get higher and higher and higher and higher until he'd crash, and then he became suicidal and became so ashamed and so felt terrible, you know?

Ricki: The first episode in 2014, he crashed around Thanksgiving. You know, I, I tried to help him via text, you know, I wasn't really talking to him. I was trying to get my life together again. And then we ended up getting back together for another two years after he went through a, a treatment center.

Shoshana: And you were hopeful that things would go back to the way that they were?

Ricki: I was, 'cause I was in love with him and I, I wanted him to get better. And I also, like, I felt like I have all the resources. Like I can fix him, I can save him, I can do this. Like I'm, I'm a manifester. I felt very hopeful that I could get him better. But things were different. I, I'm not gonna lie, things were different when he moved back into my house. I feel like every night after the, that episode, I was sleeping with one eye open. I feel like I never could totally relax with him being back with me. When is it gonna happen again? And it happened almost exactly two years later.

Shoshana: And did it look different?

Ricki: It was worse. It got worse. It got worse. Where he was like, he was downtown in LA and he was naked in the street. And I heard a story that he went into a restaurant full of people and he thought like, evil things were coming to get him and was super paranoid. He was, I mean, it just, it went to another level. And that's the thing about bipolar when they're untreated, at least I can only speak for him and what my experience was, but I've heard that it can get, it gets worse. It gets worse, it doesn't get better.

Ricki: He went back to Arizona where his mother and sister were living, and we lost touch just as we had the two years before where we didn't speak for a couple months. And I, at that point, I needed to like, put the oxygen mask on myself. I had to take care of my children and take care of myself, and I knew like I could not sign up for another round of this for me. But I wanted to be his friend. I wanted to show up for him. And so it was like, you know, the, the same thing. Thanksgiving was the, the, the lowest part. And then we'd get back in touch. And then January, three days or four days before he took his life. He came to say goodbye to me.

Ricki only realized in retrospect that Christian came to L.A. to say goodbye. At the time, she thought it was something else.

Ricki: He said he was coming through LA and I was like, oh, why, why are you coming through? He's like, oh, I've got, he had a jewelry business. And he's like, I have jewelry and pawn in a pawn shop. And he asked if he could see me. And all of my friends, my therapist, everyone said, okay, meet him for coffee. Don't bring him home. Don't see him at night. Don't have alcohol. Don't, you know, like, like all the things. And I, I am so glad I didn't listen to anybody. I saw him at night. We went and had sushi, happy hour. He didn't drink really, but he had a beer and I had a glass or two of wine and I did bring him home and I did make love to him all night. And, um, we had this amazing, really last night together. I didn't know it was his goodbye. I didn't know. And he had made a playlist for me and I was like, playlist, you made me a playlist. And it was called My Eternal Soulmate. And it was all songs. I mean, it was like, I, I've, I've listened to it many, many, many times since, since then. And it's just a love letter to me. And he wrote me a beautiful final text that I didn't at the time understand that that was goodbye.

Shoshana: And how did you learn that Christian had died by suicide?

Ricki: His sister had gotten an email from him, on the 11th of February at one 11, he wrote this note, relinquishing his dog and saying he was done. Cut to, I mean, the crazy part I like, I knew, I knew he was gone. We couldn't find his body for, for two days. I called a psychic friend of mine, a of an acquaintance of mine. I called her, she knew it was Christian. He told her where his body was and she told me, and 10 minutes later the police called and it's where he said he was. So, I mean, I'm telling you, like it gets really trippy and I know a lot of people maybe are non-believers in this, but I've had this experience that I believe with every poor, every, every cell in my being that he was able to communicate to her and I've had other validation with other mediums of his messages to me.

And yeah. The story really does get trippy. With encouragement from that same psychic, Ricki says she was able to put back together some of the pieces of Christian's life that had fallen apart when he was in a manic state.

Ricki: I found his jewelry, I found his wedding ring in a pawn shop. Like I went, I went on this wild goose chase. So he died in February of 2017, and that was kind of, that year was like, I was on a pilgrimage to heal, to try to make sense of why this happened, to honor him.

Shoshana: Yeah. Ricki losing someone you love is devastating under any circumstances. Right. But losing them to suicide brings its own particular kind of pain and complexity. What did grief look like for you?

Ricki: Oh my God. It's really like, this feels like like a cathartic therapy session. I haven't thought about him in so long. I mean, it really is like a different level of loss when they make a choice, you know? It was both extremes. It was like, it was relief. There was relief because I was so traumatizing worrying about him, and I didn't have guilt. Like I didn't have guilt when he died. I knew I did everything I could and then some, and the way I honored him, the way I honored him after he died, the way I, you know. Ugh. I honor him like every day by living my life to, to the fullest, you know? And I, and I know he is watching over me.

Ricki: I mean, I'm telling you I am like I was a pretty cool person before I met him. I'm way, way. Better. I'm a way better me, because of him and because of our love. And, he made room for me to have the love that he, he thought I deserved. And so I do feel, I feel very strongly that Christian brought Ross to me.

Shoshana: And how did you meet Ross?

Ricki: I met him during COVID during the height of COVID in 2020. So back like early days, no vaccine. And we were washing our groceries because we thought they were gonna kill

Shoshana: I remember that.

Ricki: It was a very lonely, isolating time. I was dating someone that was not the right guy, and it was just not going anywhere, but like it was COVID and whatever. So it was while I was on a beach walk, I was living in the marina, Marina del Rey and I was waiting for my house to be finished. This house that I'd bought when I was with Christian, that I was, it was gonna be our sanctuary, it was gonna be our place where we get to grow old. And he died halfway through the build of that house. Which really made me mad because I didn't wanna have a house by myself on top of a mountain in Malibu. I wanted to share it with someone. But I was living in the marina in July of 2020, and I ran into someone that I didn't even know that well, and so, you know, we hadn't anybody for weeks on end. So it was like, had the mask on at the beach. Hi, it's me, Ricky, hi. And she's like, oh my God, how's it going with your guy? I am like, I hate him. You know, I don't, I, what are you looking for? She's like, what are you looking for? And I was like. Ugh. And I had this moment of like real clarity and I was like, I want this, this, and this. Can I curse on your podcast?

Shoshana: Yeah!

Ricki: Okay. I said, I want someone who has their shit together, please. I want someone who doesn't want a fucking kid because I have kids. I don't want anymore. No one, like no 50-year-old that wants to have a baby. I want someone who wants to have fun. Like my life these days is all about fun. And she's like. I know this great guy. She goes, I know he has his shit together. He is a successful attorney. I know he doesn't want kids. He has a bunch of 'em already. I don't know if he's fun, but I have a feeling you could bring out the fun.

But it was not love at first sight.

Ricki: I was just not his type. He wasn't my type. He's a boring attorney.

Ricki: It took me a few months, but I finally saw the light at, um, it was Halloween 2020. It was very much like a rom-com. I did a double take and I like saw him and I was like I said out loud, I was like, it's you. It's, it's always been you. And that was it. Like that my heart opened and we've been together ever since.

Shoshana: Oh…

And from the beginning, Ricki told Ross about Christian. And she didn’t just tell him about the relationship they’d had when Christian was alive. Going all the way back to her early days as a talk show host, Ricki would regularly feature psychic mediums on her show. And so after Christian died, she turned to psychics to help her connect with him.

Ricki: I mean, in fact, I had this psychic reading, this medium, not the one I told you about, but this other one had channeled Christian a year after he died. And I had the audio recording and I played it for Ross. He spent the night, that night for the first time. He slept over and I woke up with him and I said, I really wanna play this for you. Can I, can I share with you what this is and what this means to me? And. I thought I'd play like 10 minutes of this really, really intense, incredible, experience. And I played it for Ross and I was like, okay, I went to turn it off. He's like, no, no, I wanna hear the whole thing. And I played him the hour recording of Christian talking to me through this medium.

Ricki: It says a lot about Ross and his, um, sense of self because he was so open to hearing everything I had to share about Christian. He welcomes me talking about him, and he's not like threatened by it. And their love for me is very similar. Like the way Ross loves me, Christian loved me just as much, but it's like Ross is like a healthy man, you know? So Ross has not threatened at all. I talk about Christian all the time. I will till the day I die. I will always share what he meant to me and what he did for me.

You’re listening to Before We Go. We’ll be right back.

Act II

I just have to warn you about something. This episode is about to take a left turn that I didn’t plan for when I asked Ricki to come on the show.

As I told Ricki at the beginning of our conversation, I wanted to talk to her about love and loss and finding love again. And there are certainly plenty of experts who could help explore that idea. But that's not actually the thing I found most fascinating about Ricki's story. So I decided to call a different kind of expert altogether.

Josh: My name is Dr. Josh Bullock and I'm a sociologist based at Kingston University, which is in London. My kind of research is in non-religion. And at the moment I've been researching people who go to pub psychic nights in the UK.

I had never heard of pub psychic nights. But in the UK, they’re quite popular.

Josh: So I live in London, in southwest London, in Kingston Upon Thames and maybe like a hundred yards from my house, there's a pub along the river and each month there's a big yellow sign. It says psychic night here. And this is quite commonplace across British pubs. Lots of spaces now are having, or have always done, hosting kind of psychic evenings on any given weekday.

Josh: They're often ticketed. They can be between usually like five pounds or maybe 25 pounds. You would get a drink beforehand, um, and sit down. But the, the events really aren't centered around drinking. They're a lot more serious than that, even though they happen in pubs.

Josh: So I can give you an idea of one I went to, which was in the southwest of England. It was in a working man's club. The one I went to was kind of arranged as tables and the psychic medium at the front introduce themselves. And then they will get messages or receive messages and people will say, you know, I think that message is for me.

Other researchers are trying to prove whether or not psychics can actually communicate with the dead. But that’s not the kind of question Josh is trying to answer.

Josh: Previously I was interested in young people who were non-religious and how, and where they find a sense of connection. So I was lucky enough to travel to 25 different places in six different European countries and speak to young non-religious people about how, and where they find a sense of connection.

Josh: And in talking to these non-religious people who were, some of them were quite staunch atheists. We found out, particularly in kind of Eastern Europe, that more than a third of them had had some kind of paranormal, superstitious, magical or supernatural belief or experience. Ghosts or people having souls or people having kind of anomalous experiences that they couldn't explain. And this was quite unusual because you wouldn't always associate these kind of things with staunch non-believers.

Before we get into Josh’s research, I just want to share something. I’m a physician by training. I certainly consider myself a scientist, someone rooted in the scientific method and evidence-based thinking. And yet, after losing my dad a few years ago, I found myself drawn to exploring mediumship—this idea that some people may, in ways we don’t fully understand, have a connection to those we’ve lost.

I don’t consider myself a believer. But I’m definitely curious. Josh, on the other hand, has no doubts.

Josh: So I'm definitely a kind of firm skeptic. I don't believe that psychics are able to communicate with the dead, and that's not to say that I don't see the kind of benefits of these things taking place.

But Josh wasn’t the only researcher working on this study.

Josh: My colleague Adam is somewhere in between. And my colleague Caroline, is certainly more of a believer, and the research assistant on the project was an occultist.

Shoshana: I bet that led to fascinating, uh, research meetings with the four of you.

Josh: Yeah, absolutely. But it also gave us a bit more of a rigorous process to how we kind of, analyze the data, how we develop the research questions, the survey questions. 'Cause we approached it from a kind of varying different positions.

Josh: I mean, it's quite odd I think, 'cause I did tell some of my colleagues across Europe about the research and often it was met with a bit of a snigger and a laugh like, you know, there's psychics and they go to a pub and you drink a pint and you communicate with the dead. Like that's really strange.

Shoshana: And so you've linked the rise in psychic nights to the decline in traditional organized religion. Explain that to me.

Josh: So now in England, some surveys put the number of non-religious people up more than 50%. So there's less and less people generationally going to church, believing in God, et cetera. More people stating that they're non-religious. And at least we think that this is to explain why there's a popup of these kind of new spiritual spaces. Because the kind of big existential questions that everyone has. You know, where do we go when we die? Those questions remain, but, but now then there's new spaces, at least we think, that are filling that gap. And we think pub psychic nights are one of these spaces that are helping people deal with grief in ways that traditional religion might have done before.

So Josh and his fellow researchers didn’t tackle the question of whether or not the messages provided by psychics were real. Instead they focused on the audience. Why were they attending? What were they hoping to get out of these events, and were these experiences profound for them? Or were they just good for a laugh?

Shoshana: And so what did you find? Are finding solace at these events?

Josh: Yeah, I mean, 56% of people. Who did our survey, said that attending a psychic night eased their grief from the loss of a loved one. So more than half the people going felt that it was helping them deal with grief in perhaps ways counseling, church, et cetera, was not doing.

And even more surprising, at least for me, the study found that people did not need to actually believe that mediumship was real in order to feel better after a reading. 

Josh: N - no. So this was quite interesting what we found from speaking to people and from interviewing them is there was a real mixture of beliefs. Not everybody was completely, firmly kind of believers in psychics, nor was everybody, um, kind of staunch skeptics. There was a real flickering in between the two where people wanted to believe. Or at least in that moment of temporary, kind of a suspension of disbelief, they wanted to believe in these things. So I've, I've got a quote from one person, I would say I'm a believer, but I'm quite skeptical. But I do think there's something going on. So it's like people in their own kind of, minds might have this kind of cognitive dissonance where they're flicking through as well. You know, they'd like to believe 'cause that provides comfort in the face of death. How on earth did that psychic medium know that really specific detail about somebody, and therefore that's proof that they're okay. But in the same breath, people are also skeptical. Well maybe they did this. You know, maybe, maybe I'd have to go see another one to really you know, know if it was true or not. But we did find that actually it didn't really matter if people believed or not. People were still seeing the benefits in terms of dealing with grief.

And one thing Josh stresses above everything else. People are definitely not attending these events just to be entertained.

Josh: Sometimes they are entertaining. Sometimes they're funny. But often they're very sad and profound. Like they're, they're, a bit like a rollercoaster. The one I went to was incredibly sad. I think being in a room full of like maybe 50 people who had clearly experienced loss recently was a tangible feeling. Like you could, you could sense it. People were there seeking hope and comfort in the face of grief and death. And you could tell like people looked anxious, people were tapping. When people received messages, they were crying, and then they were crying out of, kind of happiness, out of relief.

Josh: A message from, a woman's partner husband came through and lots of other people in the room kind of came over and gave her a little pat on the shoulder, you know, and the woman was like, that was so nice. That was so nice. So people were kind of almost crying with her as well. Tears of happiness, tears of sadness going in between all the time. People who go to these events don't necessarily know each other either, so that it is quite unusual then to share that loss with strangers. All, all within a pub that you might go to on a Saturday night.

Shoshana: Certainly unusual, and when you describe it to me, I mean obviously I, I haven't been to one, I wasn't there with you, but to me, I see this sense of beauty in that. In the human condition being shared with other humans, strangers, and people show – essentially showing up for each other in this way and allowing themselves to be vulnerable.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I, I, I think you are right in the sense that there's a sense of kind of beauty at the end or the end of a reading. Just for that moment, like a temporary moment of where people come together to support each other, that is in itself a beautiful thing to witness. But, but if you come to these events thinking that they're gonna be fun and entertaining, they're not.

Shoshana: So when people are grieving, of course they can be quite vulnerable. So is there a danger here?

Josh: Yeah. It's something that we did tackle a little bit within this project because there are elements of safeguarding here I think, that aren't really discussed. There has been cases observed, not by me, but my colleague of a male, um, psychic medium, who was, um, telling a young female that she was being followed by like a sex demon. Um. So some really strange, uh, kind of readings and power relations going on there. So it's something that we have brought up in one of our research papers that's gonna be published hopefully towards the end of 2025, about the safeguarding concerns here.

Shoshana: Did the stories that you heard from participants change your mind about psychics or what happens after we die?

Josh: No, I still remain the same person I was before the research in terms of not believing that psychic mediums can communicate with the dead, but, but I, I guess my position has changed slightly on it, that I, I see the importance of. These messages are having such a profound impact on people's lives where perhaps they were, you know, struggling, in the face of grief and just having a simple communication from a loved one that they're okay, it is enough for them to deal with the kind of existential threats that we deal with as humans all the time. Where do we go when we die? What happens to my loved one? And if somebody is telling you that your loved one is safe, they're okay, they're wishing you well. That's a really good, you know, new partner you've got, we're really happy for you. I don't see necessarily speaking to a psychic or medium that dissimilar from praying or getting religious guidance. And therefore, at least from my perspective, I don't need to believe in it to see the profound impact it's having on people's lives.

Here in the US, not a lot of bars host psychic nights. But that doesn’t mean there’s not outlets for this kind of thing. Since last September, one of those outlets has been a show on Netflix called Live from the Other Side with Tyler Henry.

Amanda Kloots: Tyler, we are live on Netflix, how are you feeling? Are you ready? Are you nervous? What's going on?

Tyler: I'm ready. I'm ready to knock it out. I have one person coming through for two people at least.

Tyler Henry is a clairvoyant medium and TV personality. He’s most well known for his readings for Hollywood celebrities.

In Live from the Other Side, Tyler meets with celebrities and their guests. Everyone brings items that are connected to people who have died. When Ricki appeared on the show in October of last year, she brought some of Christian’s jewelry.

Ross sat behind Ricki on a long couch and supported her – physically and emotionally – as Tyler brought her messages from Christian.

Tyler: When we connect with him more than anything I need to know. He's okay. And that is always what people wanna know. And when he comes in, there's a sense resoundingly of I'm so much more than how I went.

And look, I’m also not going to try to prove or disprove whether mediums like Tyler can actually speak to the dead, but there are some things about this reading that seem like they could have eased Ricki's pain. 

For example, remember when Ricki said this?

Ricki: I could see it in his eyes when he was manic and in a psychotic state, I could see it clear as day. It was like two different people. It was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

At the beginning of the reading, Tyler acknowledged that he knew that Ricki’s husband had died. But he said that he didn’t remember anything more about it than that. And then, during the reading, he came out with this.

Tyler: He's showing me his eyes very clearly in the way this comes through. There's this feeling of you could just kinda look at him and I don't know if you would get a specific look in his eyes when he was going through it. Yes. But it's like, I can see this in you, even if you're not. Saying it, and I want to fix this, but I can't.

Ricki: Yes, that is actually…

Tyler: I need you to know. He knows that you did everything possible.

And I want to tell you about one more really wild thing that happened during this reading.

Tyler: So we're gonna end up finding that there's a story where like there was a house fire or something along those lines. A fire risk.

At the time, Ricki told Tyler that the fire already happened. After all, a house fire was part of her and Christian's love story.

But just three months after the live show… Ricki lost her home in the LA fires of January 2025.

Ricki: The house I had with Christian burned down and so, so much of his stuff that I'd had is gone. All of the jewelry I'd kept, I didn't have much. And that is, just been a new level of, of loss, you know, and just having to come to terms with just, you know, nothing is permanent. We just have right now. Right this moment, right now.

Ricki: Like another medium. Like I'm, I'm not that woo woo, but I did have another person channel and tell me that this is a good thing that this happened to me. That this, like, we're having this adventure in New York. We moved to New York City. I'm living in this amazing, I bought this great apartment. I had insurance. We were able to buy this place. I can rebuild my place, which I plan to do. So it's not a total loss. Like, it's just, it's just something we didn't anticipate.

Ricki: Life is very strange these days. But, um, I'm grateful for all of it, all of it.

Ricki keeps insisting that she’s not “that woo woo.” But it’s clear that she’s gotten a lot of solace from talking to psychics since Christian’s death. Another one told her that Christian is waiting for her – in the afterlife.

Ricki: He feels at peace. He feels like he's himself and the only thing he doesn't have is me, and that he believes we will be reunited.

And given how happy Ricki is now with Ross, that begs a kind of obvious question.

Shoshana: What happens when you're all there together?

Ricki: Okay, so I choose to believe that there is something more than what we are living in now. There is something beyond and I think that there's enough of me to go around and that I believe the three of us are going to be together, that Ross and Christian are going to meet in the afterlife, and that we're all gonna live in harmony in some way.

Ricki: I choose to believe that I will be with my beloved Christian again, and Ross is right there with me, and there is no jealousy. It's only love, only love.

Next time on the show. Dr. BJ Miller was a sophomore in college when a freak accident caused him to become a triple amputee. But, BJ says, having grown up with a mother who was also disabled gave him a unique perspective on his new life.

BJ: I mean, obviously I was terrified. I was in pain, I was confused. I was many things, but there was also a piece of me that sort of knew what was happening. When I came out of that first surgery. And I remember I saw my mom first, and I just remember saying to her, oh, you know, wow, mom, now we have so much more in common. And I meant it.

Still, in the early days, BJ sometimes wished he could hide his disabilities. But that just wasn’t possible.

BJ: I did not have a choice. I couldn't pass. And, that's something I'm extremely grateful for.

That’s next time on Before We Go.