For years, Oz Pearlman — better known as Oz the Mentalist — has been inescapable. He has appeared everywhere: March Madness coverage, HBO’s Hard Knocks, Joe Rogan’s podcast, and most recently the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where he was slated to perform for President Trump. (Pearlman was mere moments into his set when gunshots in a nearby hallway evacuated the dinner; the suspected shooter was charged with the attempted assassination of a President.) Pearlman, an America’s Got Talent alum (he came in third place in 2015) is the most televised mentalist in the world and the most followed one on social media. His act — guessing names, PINs, memories, and private details seemingly extracted from thin air — has made him a fixture on talk shows, around locker rooms, and in celebrity culture. Now that act is under serious scrutiny.
Last week on Pablo Torre Finds Out, the Pulitzer Prize-winning ESPN alum Pablo Torre found out how Pearlman pulls off his most shocking tricks. Stevie Baskin’s findings are a real bummer for anyone who still believes in a little magic.
On January 15, the Aussie Baskin posted a five-hour, 11-minute exposé on Pearlman’s evident use of “meta-deception” in his “mind-reading” act. At its most basic (none of this is basic, hence the runtime of Baskin’s takedown), meta-deception is the practice of deceiving a mark as to how you’re deceiving them — and, in some cases, when you’re deceiving them. Oz acknowledges he’s not a true clairvoyant (because those don’t exist) and states he instead is a master at reading nonverbal clues like micro-expressions. That’s not entirely true, Baskin says.
