Nick Goebel’s grandmother died before he could tell her he was gay.
But in April, the UF student may finally get a chance — with the help of a TV-famous psychic medium scheduled to visit Gainesville.
“I wonder what she would say about it now,” said Goebel, a 20-year-old public relations sophomore.
On April 20, Theresa Caputo, the star of TLC’s “Long Island Medium,” will speak with the dead and discuss her gift at UF’s O’Connell Center.
The appearance, part of Caputo’s national tour, piqued the interest of O’Connell center organizers, who wanted to offer students an out-of-the-ordinary form of on-campus entertainment, wrote Lynda Reinhart, the director of the O’Connell Center, in an email.
“We are excited to try something a little different and offer the campus and community an opportunity to see something new,” she said.
On her show, which is entering its ninth season, Caputo juggles her life as a mom while speaking with the dead loved ones of people she meets. Caputo, a practicing medium of about 15 years, is being hosted by another company, so UF isn’t paying for the show, Reinhart said.
General admission tickets are on sale for $39.75 at the O’Connell Center box office or on ticketmaster.com. Reinhart said 4,000 tickets are available, but depending on demand, the amount and price of tickets may change.
Reinhart said purchasing a ticket doesn’t guarantee attendees a reading, and she isn’t sure how many readings Caputo will conduct.
Goebel said he believes in mediums, but isn’t sure Caputo is one, he said.
“I kind of want to gauge for myself in like a real-person setting and not like a TV context because I think that’s very gimmicky,” Goebel said. “It’s opening up a lot of UF students to things that they don’t think about because we’re such a research-based university.”
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Theresa Caputo
