Theresa Caputo is returning to TV. She told us why

Theresa Caputo holds the secrets to the afterlife. At least, that’s what most people think when they come up to the former “Long Island Medium” star in public.

They ask: Is there life after death? What does it look like? Will our families be there with us? You know, the questions we all secretly ponder but are often too shy to say.

Caputo may be a prominent medium, but she's the first to admit that even she doesn’t have all the answers about the afterlife.

“I always say, ‘I’ll find out when I get there,’” she jokes while chatting with TODAY.com over Zoom.

For nearly a decade, Caputo starred in her own TLC series, “Long Island Medium,” in which she purportedly connected with the souls of the deceased, which she refers to as Spirit.

The 56-year-old is now preparing for the premiere of her new Lifetime TV series, “Theresa Caputo: Raising Spirits,” which will debut Jan. 25.

She says fans can expect a mix of her professional and personal life on the show.

“I still speak to the souls of the departed, so don’t worry about that. But what I love is that we go a little bit more into my personal life with my family, my parents and my granddaughter,” she says.

Why Theresa Caputo decided to return to TV

Since “Long Island Medium” ended in 2019 after eight years on the air, Caputo has kept busy writing bestselling books, going on tours, doing private readings — and, becoming a grandma.

Caputo says the COVID-19 pandemic, and feelings of shared isolation, persuaded her to add TV show back to her hectic schedule.

“I feel that spirit has that ability and gift to give us faith, that little mustard seed to continue life. And I felt that the world needed my gift more than ever at that time and still does,” she says.

She continues, “I felt like my gift and the work that I do restores people’s faith. And we might not have lost someone during COVID, but we all lost something.“

Caputo explains her 'gift'

Caputo says she first started seeing, feeling and sensing spirits when she was 4 years old, then developed her skill in her 20s.

“As a child, I think like most people, I was afraid of death in general. I was afraid of dying, of leaving. What would happen?” she says. “I wouldn’t say that I was afraid of my gift. I don’t know if that’s an accurate word. I just didn’t understand it because I didn’t know what was happening to me.”

As a practicing Catholic, Caputo says she once struggled with reconciling her gift with the beliefs of her faith. “I had to learn how to incorporate my gift with my faith because I know my gift comes from God. I know that this is my soul’s journey to do this in the physical world,” she says.

She sees psychic readings as a way to break through the “negative emotions” that happen “no matter who we lose.”

“At the end of the day, these emotions and burdens do not give us the ability to heal,” she says.

Whether she’s connecting with a client individually or in the middle of an auditorium, Caputo says her readings offer the same thing: A sense of healing.

“(It’s rewarding) to be able to give someone that permission to live and embrace life with happiness and joy, even though it’s hard and it’s going to be tough without your loved one. But knowing that they’re still with you, just in a different way, might make tomorrow a little bit easier,” she says.

Caputo finds that the spirits she connects with during her live shows are “more playful” and “tend to show more of their personality” than the ones who manifest during private readings.

Their bubbliness makes it easier for people to be at peace with loss, she says. “We need to bring laughter. We need the levity because it is very heavy to hear these messages,” she explains.

Balancing motherhood with life as a medium

Caputo says she doesn’t have a day off in her work as a psychic, though she’s not always delivering messages to strangers. “It’s whether a spirit pushes me enough to say something,” she explains.

But the mother of two works to stay present when she’s with her adult children, Victoria and Larry Jr., and her granddaughter, Michelina. Caputo says her kids understand and respect what she does for a living.

“I am very fortunate. Larry and Victoria are just the most amazing children and they’ve always been respectful and really good kids,” she says.

Caputo's family has evolve in recent years. In 2018, she finalized her divorce to her husband of 28 years, Larry Caputo. Both of her children are now married.

Victoria tied the knot with Michael Mastrandrea in 2021 and the couple welcomed their first child the following year. Meanwhile, Larry Jr. got married to longtime girlfriend Leah Munch in 2023.

Caputo says her kids were never fazed by her realm-crossing line of work.

“It really was never a big deal. I didn’t really talk about it because it wasn’t something that you talk about at the lacrosse field or the baseball field. So for them it was kind of normal because they didn’t know any different. It was like, ‘My mom talks to dead people,’” she says.

That said, Caputo has used her abilities for a bit of parenting fun.

“I remember saying to my son one time (when) he was going out with his friends as a teenager, ‘Listen, my friends are going to be watching you.’ And he’s like, ‘What friends?’ And ‘I’m like, ‘The dead ones. So they’re gonna tell me if you’re doing something wrong,’” she fondly recalls.

As the medium explains in the first episode of “Theresa Caputo: Raising Spirits,” she’s just a grandma who talks to the dead.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com