Seeing spirits with the stars

Kim Russo, “The Happy Medium,” is back on television in “Celebrity Ghost Stories,” where she is seen using her abilities to bridge the paranormal experiences of her famous guests.

In one episode she strives to make Ice-T believe in ghosts, she said. In another she reveals a side of Terry Bradshaw that the public may not otherwise see and in another she has an emotional experience with Paula Abdul.

“I think each episode was rewarding in its own way,” she said. “The investigations in of themselves are just shocking, honestly, in a good way . . . They give people a lot of comfort. It’s not just entertainment. It’s learning that this is not all there is.”

But Russo once held a different outlook on the experiences that have been a part of her life since her childhood. “I didn’t have the capability of understanding what was happening me,” she said. “I was just petrified every night before going to bed.”

When she was a child, Russo would fall to sleep to a scene that could have been straight out of a horror movie. The same group of spirits stood at the foot of her bed and watched her sleep, she said. She described them as wearing stoic expressions and Great Depression-era clothing.

When she was five, Russo recalled playing under her Christmas tree and finding a safety pin on the floor that, out of curiosity, she stuck into an electrical outlet. She was launched across the room, charring the arm that had held the safety pin. She attributes the near-death experience to the opening of her “aura” or electromagnetic energy field surrounding her body.

“I didn’t hypothesize this until I read it in a book, that many mediums were hit by electricity as children,” she said, adding that she spent many days in the East Meadow Public Library researching what was happening to her when she started having paranormal experiences as an adult.

Russo is a mother of three boys, Nicholas, 30, Joseph, 28, and Anthony Jr., 25. Her gift, as she calls it, resurfaced after all of her children were born.

She sometimes saw spirits or had visions, but mostly, she recalled hearing them everyday whispering to her names and pleas. Her first endeavor outside of the class was with a friend who knew what she was experiencing and asked if she could contact someone she loved who had died. The friend gave Russo a watch and, when she held it, she started to hear what sounded like “mah levah” being repeated in her head. He also repeated his name and his wife’s name.

It turned out the man was the father-in-law of Russo’s friend and he had been trying to say “my liver,” but spoke in a thick Italian accident. He had died of liver failure and wanted to explain this to Russo and tell his family that he was still with them.

“It freaked me out a little bit, I was just giving her information I was hearing,” Russo said. “But she told her whole family and said it helped them so much.”

By word of mouth, more people grew aware of Russo’s abilities and, starting in 1994 for a year, she would do readings for free each night after putting her children to bed. She said it was like a training period, but soon enough she turned it into a business because of how much of her time she had dedicated to it.

For years, she had an office in Wantagh and would visit people for private or group readings — neither of which she does anymore because of her commitment to the television show.

However, she appeared at a fundraiser last month in support of the family of ex-captain Michael Smith, who served in the East Meadow Fire Department’s Engine Company #2 with her husband Anthony.

Because she is a self-proclaimed skeptic, Russo become a certified medium by The Forever Family Foundation and The Windbridge Institute for Applied Research in Human Potential.

She catapulted onto the television screen after a group reading in Manhattan that was attended by a publicist for A&E — a popular network known for its paranormal-themed shows, including Ghost Hunters.

The publicist was so impressed that he invited her to their studios to do readings for a group of A&E executives. After the experience, they promised to secure her a spot the next time a medium role was needed for one of their shows.

This led to her first television show “The Haunt Of . . . ,” a spin-off of “Celebrity Ghosts Stories.” The show included 80 episodes featuring a number of famous guests, airing from 2012 to 2016.

Now, it’s back in a third iteration under its original name. Filming began May 2019 and finished, with six episodes, by July. It premieres on April 8 at 10 p.m., after the season two premiere of the new “Ghost Hunters.”

Russo compared herself to a psychic “Barbara Walters.” “I’m very candid, I don’t hold anything back,” she said. “Whatever I receive, I know they’re meant to hear it.”

Russo also starred in the A&E series “Psychic Intervention” and appeared in the &E series “Paranormal State” and "Psychic Kids.” She won Best Psychic in 2015 and 2017 in the Bethpage Federal Credit Union’s Best of L.I. competition. And she wrote two books titled “The Happy Medium: Life Lessons from The Other Side” and "Your Soul Purpose, Learn How to Access The Light Within.”

Her first tackles questions about religion and explores how her abilities did not concur or conflict with her Christina upbringing. “I learned that my gift has absolutely nothing to do with any religion . . . because it’s based in energy and consciousness,” she said. “Science has proven that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it could only change form.”