Tyler Henry Describes Sarah Paulson’s ‘AHS’ Role as Medium Billie Dean Howard as ‘so Camp’
Actor Sarah Paulson was psychic medium Tyler Henry’s first celebrity client and it completely wasn’t lost on him that she also played a medium in American Horror Story.
Paulson played medium Billie Dean Howard in AHS Season 1, a Craigslist psychic whose backstory is explored in another season of the series.
The AHS fandom has theories about Billie Dean, but Henry was fixated on how camp it was that she was his first celebrity client who also played a psychic.
Tyler Henry loved the psychic medium connection with Sarah Paulson
“It was so camp, which I could really appreciate. Like all mediums by default are a little campy but that was so special for me,” Henry said on the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast about Paulson playing a psychic on AHS.
“I was, you know, 17 years old and it was over the phone,” he recalled of the reading. “And it was such a surreal moment being a fan of somebody. But to be able to connect on that human level, beyond the public figure, which I think really did act as a precursor for what we saw in the over 200 celebrity readings on Hollywood Medium. We had a lot of recognizable faces, but it was really more about what was kind of underneath the face, underneath the hood, that I think people found the most valuable and the most reliable.”
Sarah Paulson addressed ‘AHS’ fan theory
Henry believes that he did Paulson’s reading after she took on the Bille Dean role. “You know, I could think it might have been before because I would love to take credit for that role,” he mused. “But I think she might have filmed that before we got to meet.” He added, “I can’t remember the timeline, but now, I expect more medium renditions from her.”
Her enduring performance as Billie Dean sprung a fan theory that her dual appearances were somehow connected. When Billie’s backstory is explored in My Roanoke Nightmare (with Lily Rabe as Shelby who becomes Billie) she’s working in reality TV. So is production haunted?
What does Paulson think about the theory? “No comment,” she told Screen Crush. “We’ll see what people do with that, the non-comment comment. They’ll go, ‘That’s confirmed!’ ‘It’s denied!’ It’s just no comment folks, there’s just no comment.”
My Roanoke Nightmare wasn’t Billie’s final appearance on AHS. Paulson also returned as Billie for Apocalypse, as well as season 5’s Hotel.
Tyler Henry talks about notepad scribbling
Every medium has a different approach to readings. Henry uses a notepad and writes and scribbles as his client speaks.
“You know, other mediums have definitely done it before. I can’t say I originated it, but it’s something I’ve definitely used as a way to just kind of connect,” he explained.
“It’s really not about anything that gets written on the page itself. It’s more the process of scribbling that, just, kind of gets me into an altered state of mind. Think of, but like an active daydream,” he said. “And scribbling just kind of allows me to doodle. Equivalent to, like, what we do when we’re on the phone. Very similar, and its mechanism of kind of creating that change.”
“So it’s been just kind of part of the work. And sometimes people keep the scribbles. We have some celebrities that framed them. And then other times, it’s like scrap paper to them. And then I get to keep it and I frame it,” he said.
