Chris Gardner
Tyler Henry is sweating.
We are seated in an airy and bright conference room inside The Hollywood Reporter’s offices at Penske Media Corporation headquarters overlooking the 405 freeway. The 28-year-old, best known as the breakout star of Hollywood Medium on E! followed by the more recent Life After Death on Netflix, offered a polite heads up that he might perspire while doing a personal reading, something that is part of his process as he attempts to connect with the other side. But before Henry did his thing, he defined what it is that he does.
“The technical definition is somebody who communicates with people who have passed,” says Henry who was in the building to help promote his current live tour (with an upcoming stop in Los Angeles at the Peacock Theater on April 12). “I have come to view it as something a little bit more multifaceted. I view mediums almost as coincidence-makers. They come into our lives and if they’re good at what they do, they relay information that helps us make connections internally that we perhaps wouldn’t have ordinarily made ourselves. That can be very enlightening. My goal is to pick up on information that is not public knowledge, and sometimes that means details that are oftentimes nuanced inside jokes, revealing family dynamics that can be very personal but very touching.”
He scribbles away on a notepad — another one of his signatures — and by the time he’s done, Henry has filled a full sheet of paper with black stripes and squiggles, figures and blobs. We’ve covered family situations, with a particular focus on my mother and father’s respective relatives. It’s clear that he cares as he shares for almost 30 minutes. Once it’s over — and some secrets have been revealed — Henry opened up on his process, what it’s like to be on tour and how he unwinds when he’s not in the hot seat.
You’ve said that reading journalists can be nerve wracking. What is it about that process that is challenging?
I think my nerves are indication that I care. Every reading I do, I get some degree of nerves because it indicates that I want it to go well, that I want to leave a person better than I find them. But with journalists —I’ve read Ellen, I’ve sat with Larry King and some big personalities — they can make or break you. And it can be hard to describe the experience because I don’t even understand what I fully do and so I understand when other people don’t understand it.
How do you attempt to convey what it is that you do?
I view it more as an ability, as a proclivity that I was born with. It kind of allows me to get into an altered state of mind. I kind of actively daydream and then these impressions come through. People see mediums as those who can see dead people walking around, like The Sixth Sense or Oda Mae Brown in Ghost. While there are things that can be dramatic or startling, it’s very subtle. It’s very not concrete. For me, it’s more akin to creativity than science. It’s very difficult to describe to people who view it as a binary of whether this is fake or whether this is real. There’s a certain standard we like to place on things that in order for something to be real, it has to be scientifically verifiable.
The reason we’re sitting here today is because of the tour. When you have to turn it on for the stage, how difficult is that?
It’s a process. As long as I can work and blow off that necessary steam, I’m able to maintain a sense of normalcy. What I’ve found is that since I was 10 years old, when I had my first premonition, generally I can only go a couple weeks without doing some form of spiritual work. What happens is if I try to go on vacation, I kind of get mentally constipated. I start getting weird feelings like why am I seeing cerebral edema or why am I seeing Mary? All of these things just pop into my mind that make it very difficult to focus on myself and my trains of thought. Doing readings almost alleviates that pressure and makes it so that when I’m done, I can be Tyler the person versus Tyler the medium.
What does Tyler the person like to do to blow off steam?
Oh my goodness. I spend a lot of time at home. I’m a big home body. I’ve been with my partner for nearly eight years now, and we make music together. We’re like little old men. We read books to each other late into the night and make stained glass windows for fun. A very archaic hobby.
I saw on Instagram that synthesizers are a new hobby.
Yes, yes. Music’s been a great way to apply intuition in a way that is creative. For anyone who is a creative, you can find that there is an intuitive aspect of knowing where to start and when to stop. It’s true for paintings, it’s true with music, it’s true for writing books. That knowingness can be very integral.
Also on Instagram, I saw that you were meditating after 1 a.m. the other night. Is that a normal occurrence for you to be up that late?
It is. I am a complete night owl. I’m up until three or four in the morning. If you need me, send me an email, I will respond. For me, it’s a great time because everyone else is asleep and I’m able to get the most out of my time without the beeps and buzzes of my phone.
You live in Topanga? That is known as a very spiritual place, did that have anything to do with why you settled there?
Topanga was really more ideal for me because it meant that I don’t have to navigate PCH which is a nightmare in and of itself. That area is, by L.A. standards, more nature-oriented with hills and trees. It is a conducive environment to to be able to have isolation which is quite hard for most of us in L.A.
Back to the tour. For those who have never been to a Tyler Henry live show, what’s it like?
It’s generally a two-part show. During the first, I will explain who I am and what I do. The second part, I demonstrate it. That’s when things get really interesting. I go into the audience and I relay as many messages as I can. In these situations, you can sometimes have 3,000-5,000 people. As you can imagine, that’s a lot of energy and a lot of choice anxiety as to who to pick and where to go. What I find is that I can separate the audience mentally into quadrants. Sometimes I will be pulled into one quadrant or another. From there, I’ll go through a process of elimination based on what’s coming through.
When we find the person, they stand up to the mic and I will read them. This happens over and over again. What I find so fascinating is that the messages that will come in during the maybe three minutes that I have with a person are oftentimes more symbolic of greater concepts. I did a reading for a woman in an audience and saw a firefighter who was showing me what looked like the symbol of a clover. She told me that the man had died and he was a fireman. When they found him, one of the few objects he had on him was a keychain with a clover on it that read No. 1 Dad. The picture was worth a thousand words.
Have you ever been too bombarded with energy that it becomes hard to navigate?
I just do my best. It’s one of those things where some days you’re really on, and other days you want to go take a nap, but you still have to go to work. You still have to give it a shot. I do find that I’ve learned to trust in timing more than anything in my life. I found that when clients have been rescheduled very often when I meet with them eventually, it’s interesting because sometimes someone will have passed between the rescheduling and when I actually meet the person and then I end up being meant to connect with the person who died in between.
You do live shows, in-person readings as well as virtual, one-on-ones and groups. Is there a format you prefer?
One-on-one is the most intimate. They all serve different purposes. I’m able to be more straightforward in one-on-one situations because I don’t have to think about the audience is going to think of someone’s personal life. I always tell people in these live shows, this isn’t the Jerry Springer show. If I bring you up, I’m not going to divulge the big family secret. But when you do one-on-ones, you can go into the dad’s difficult love life and you can say those things without worrying that a family member’s in the audience, especially in small towns, you have to kind of be conscientious and protect the person that’s being read.
Your Netflix show, Life After Death, introduced you to a much wider audience thanks to the global reach of the streamer. I’m interested to hear how your life has changed since the show debuted? On Instagram, you wrote that you couldn’t have imagined the outpouring of love that came after it premiered but that also it was a series that served as a snapshot of a very liminal time…
That was a very liminal time for all of us. Everybody was in a state of transition. For me, it also included a family journey of exploration and learning about my biological family roots while traveling the country and helping folks who really needed readings. What I loved about the Netflix show was that it was not celebrity oriented. I felt so privileged to, as a teenager, have a show about celebrities. We sat with more than 200 of them but where my ability shines the most is where there’s the greatest need. I found that knocking on the doors of rural places and surprising people who had a genuine yearning to connect is where we oftentimes saw the most value. It helped humanize me and show that I’m not just all about Hollywood celebrities. Being that I came from a little town in central California, I felt I was able to reach clientele with this Netflix show that is similar to where I came from, the very salt of the Earth folks.
Is there more Netflix to come?
We got an Emmy nomination, which was cool. We’re going to see. We’re kind of in talks to how that could go in the future. I’m positive about it.
Do you still receive a lot of incoming calls from Hollywood celebrities?
There are tons. But for me, most of my readings are done for free, and a lot of those readings are done for terminally ill people. I actually allocate a lot of time to that, those are my VIPs. They’re timely. And those situations allow me to provide comfort for people who are going to be making their transition. I’ve met with children before they have passed as well as their parents. It allows me to really kind of satisfy why I do what I do in a bigger way.
One of the challenges of Hollywood Medium and reading celebrities is that they’re definitely not as open. There was a situation when I was reading LaToya Jackson and I could barely say two words without her publicist coming in to say, “No, no no, we’re not using that.” Another with Matt Lauer, I did a full hour reading but he had control over the edit so his team would say that we could only use the information that was publicly known so they could keep other information private. We dealt with that dynamic a lot with celebrities and while that may be great for their public image, it’s really bad for a medium who is trying to provide information that isn’t researchable or easily found on Google. Reading everyday folks carries so much less baggage and that’s where my heart truly is.
Vanity Fair wrote that your waiting list is 600,000…
It’s more than that now, and I know that sounds crazy but between four seasons of Hollywood Medium to Life After Death, that’s the ages of 19-28 for me so that means a decade of requests.
How do you even approach a list of that size?
Groups. Groups help knock it down. I have a virtual membership through an online community called The Collective through a service called Fireside. That allows me to knock out as many readings as I can and connect with people from all over the world.
You’ve become a celebrity yourself but unlike other notable names, when you’re in public, people want more than just a selfie or an autograph, they want a reading which seems like a much more aggressive of an ask. How do you navigate those requests?
It was hard as a teenager, but as I grew a little older, I have come to view it as an honor, as a privilege. When people see their favorite actor or singer, it’s one thing to say, “I love your song,” or, “I love your movie.” But I represent a connection that may exist with them for one of their loved ones. It’s something of a privileged position to be in and when people come up to me and express who they’ve lost, I just listen because I owe it to them to listen. I don’t believe I am the source of my ability. This is something that was given to me in some way while I have done the work to try to refine it. I really, it’s a privilege without a shadow of doubt. It’s humbling to see how touched people are by that work.
Since you’re on tour, I have to ask: What’s on Tyler Henry’s tour rider?
Only green Skittles. [Laughs] No, funny enough, it’s bananas and a very specific type of protein bar. On the day of a show, I only eat protein bars which is probably horrible for my digestive tract. But that’s what I do. Right before, I will eat a couple of bananas. I think Travis Barker does something similar before he performs.
Why that combination?
It just helps fuel the body. I’m not a big eater, generally, and so I eat a lot more on show days than I would otherwise. I eat to live. I don’t live to eat.
Have you always been like that?
Yeah. I’ve always had kind of avoidant food issues. I was always a very picky eater as a kid and I still am. I think it’s some form of autism. I recently just had a conversation about this because it’s definitely possible. I used to stack things as a kid and I’ve always had a different approach to things.
Do you think that that aligns with your gift at all?
There’s been some research at Stanford University by Dr. Garry Nolan, who has actually tried to look at a possible link between autism and altered states of consciousness and how those may or may not relate. There have been some indications that neuroplasticity differences in neurobiology seem to help people think in different ways.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
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