‘Meet the Frasers’: Who Are the Frasers?
What do you get when you combine a psychic medium, his pageant queen girlfriend, and their opinionated families? E!’s newest reality sitcom Meet the Frasers. The brand-new show offers a look inside a quirky Rhode Island clan as medium Matt Fraser and his girlfriend Alexa Papigiotis try to climb their way to the top. The first episode airs Monday, Jan. 13 at 10/9c on E!. (It’s also streaming for free on YouTube.)
Matt Fraser is a psychic medium
Matt Fraser is a third-generation psychic medium (his mom and grandmother also had the gift). The 28-year-old is something of a celebrity in his hometown of Cranston, Rhode Island. But he doesn’t want to settle for just local fame. Together with his girlfriend, the man who calls himself America’s “top psychic medium” has set his sights on reaching even more people.
As a child, Fraser started hearing voices and seeing “full-body apparitions,” he recounts on his website. While he tried to ignore his abilities, eventually that became impossible. A message from his deceased grandmother during a visit to a psychic convinced him he was meant to use his gift for good.
“She told me to embrace my gifts and use them to deliver messages from those who had passed into the spirit world to bring healing and comfort to the ones they’d left behind. It was a moment of clarity I will never forget,” Fraser explains on his website.
Not afraid of a little self-promotion, Fraser can often be seen around town in an SUV emblazoned with his face and name. He’s also the author of a book, When Heaven Calls, that’s due out in March 2020.
But not everyone is convinced Fraser’s psychic abilities are for real. He was one of several self-proclaimed mediums targeted by a group of skeptics whose goal is to expose what they see as fraud. Their investigations were featured in a 2019 article in New York Times Magazine.
Alexa Papigiotis is a pageant queen
Fraser’s girlfriend Alexa Papigiotis also has a starring role on Meet the Frasers. While she supports her boyfriend’s career ambitions, she has goals of her own. She was 2017 Miss Rhode Island Teen USA and she’s focused on winning another crown. She’s also hoping to get a proposal from her boyfriend. (Based on a teaser for the new show, it looks like she might get her wish.)
Papigiotis met Fraser when he did a reading for her, she told the Taunton Gazette. “He said he saw my departed Grammy standing behind me, and I nearly ran out of the restaurant! I was a little bit freaked out, but I also thought he was so cute! I immediately just knew we would be together,” she said.
Their families make things complicated
Fraser and Papagiotis’s extended families also play a big role in Meet the Frasers. While Fraser’s mom Angela is a believer in her son’s abilities, his dad Rod and sister Maria are skeptics.
Meanwhile, Papagiotis’s mom Sharon Ciolli is pressuring the young couple to get married and start a family. Her stepdad Anthony Ciolli says he’s a former mobster who’s dedicated to his stepdaughters, while her sister Ava plays the role of supportive sister helping her sibling get in shape for her next pageant.
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