In the late 1990s, Miss Cleo became a pop culture icon with her faux-Jamaican accent and late night infomercial requests to call the psychic hotline. By the end of the decade, you couldn’t turn on BET without hearing her famous catch phrase: “Call me, now!”

After a string of lawsuits and fraud allegations, the psychic hotline was shut down. Soon after, reports confirmed what most people suspected: Miss Cleo was not a Jamaican-born psychic. According to reports from a Florida newspaper, Cleo was really a Los Angeles born woman named Youree Dell Harris. Some groups, such as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Paranormal, argued that she was not even a real psychic.

While many think that Harris had an ownership interest in the Miss Cleo hotline, she actually was paid a one-time flat fee of $1700 to appear on the commercials. Except for a few voice-acting gigs, the woman who earned millions for others was left with little to show for her short career.

In 2006, Miss Cleo has returned to the public eye. In a few weeks, the self-proclaimed shaman will join the cast of VH1’s Surreal Life, a haven for world-weary child actors, washed up rockers, and other flash in the pan C-listers.

Although she has yet to come clean about her American origins, she has made a far more important revelation: Miss Cleo is a lesbian.

In the October issue of The Advocate, Cleo explains that her gay godson provided her with the motivation and courage to come out:

“He and I started talking when he was concerned about coming out. He was 16. When he made the decision, I told him I’d be there to support him 100 percent, and he embraced [coming out] wholeheartedly. It’s a different vibe than when I was his age, being raised Catholic in an all-girls boarding school. But he was afraid of nothing, and I thought, I can’t be a hypocrite. This boy is going to force me to put my money where my mouth is.”

While the skeptic in me questions the timing of the announcement –personal confessions always seem to accompany new albums, books, and television shows– I’m nonetheless thrilled that Miss Cleo is coming out in full public view. As Keith Boykin mentioned yesterday, such gestures have enormous impact on the way queer identities are represented and read in the public sphere. My only concern is that her upcoming stay in VH1’s world of Celeb-Reality will turn her into a caricature and undermine her ability to speak with youth and adults about her personal and professional struggles.