
Professionals Diagnose Randy and Evi Quaid: Call It 'The Madness of Two'

Love can make you crazy. So maybe that's why actor Randy Quaid seems to have gone completely and utterly mad.
He and wife Evi fancy themselves being hunted by a gang of murderous celebrity stalkers they call the "Star Whackers" -- whom they blame for the deaths of everyone from Heath Ledger to Michael Jackson. They swear that they're fairly high up on the hit list, and that the killers are shrewd enough to make the murders look like accidents or suicides. As a result, they're on the run. In Canada, no less, where they're seeking asylum after arrests for fraud and felony vandalism in the United States. They even claim to have caught the "Whackers" in the act of practicing to kill them. Evi says their deaths will be made to look like a double suicide.
"We're this close to solving our own murder," she
tells Esquire. "It's the only way I'll be able to keep Randy alive."
Mental health experts say the couple may be suffering from a psychological condition known as "folie a deux" -- a French term meaning literally "the madness of two." The syndrome is a delusional state shared by two people who bolster each other's twisted take on the world.
"It applies in that they are a pair and they reinforce each other's bizarre hold on reality," Stuart Fischoff, a senior editor of the Journal of Media Psychology and an expert in celebrity psychology, tells
PopEater. "So long as you stay with each other and you stay insular, it's a siege mentality. You're not open to contradictions from the outside world."
University of Pennsylvania psychiatrist Dr. Christos Ballas says the disorder only becomes apparent when one off-kilter person gets involved with another -- and then everything spirals downward.
"Independently, people with folie a deux might not be delusional, but because they have another person to reinforce it, it becomes quasi-real," Ballas tells
PopEater. "Finally, he met the right person who shared his proclivity for wackiness, and off they went."
A pair with folie a deux often have little interaction with others and are hopelessly dependent on each other. In this case, the Quaids seem to have convinced themselves that their paranoid delusions are real.
"When you have no one else, it gets increasingly bizarre," says Fischoff. "They're reinforcing each other's paranoia. And there's a polarization of perspective: It becomes more and more extreme. They live in an increasingly fantastical world."
Among the possible causes, he says, are extreme stress and heavy drug use.
"It can be from substance abuse," Fischoff explains. "It could be that his career was on a slide and that could be an increasingly traumatic situation for him: 'Why am I not getting a job? People are against me.' All that could begin to feed on itself. There was something going on in their lives that was a destabilizing influence."
There's also always the chance that the whole thing could be an elaborate ruse. But Ballas believes that's highly unlikely.
"If they are faking it, they're going through a very real way of doing it," he says.
PopEater columnist
Rob Shuter, a former publicist for Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Lopez among others, agrees with Ballas' assessment, saying the Quaids are "so out of their minds that if they're faking this, then they deserve an award. I have to believe it's real."
He adds: "I don't believe anybody, including J.K. Rowling, could come up with a plot like this."
While the Quaids are almost certainly delusional, what they don't seem to have is a more serious thought disorder like psychosis or schizophrenia, according to Ballas. If they did, their beliefs about what was going on around them would be even more preposterous.
"[Their story] is very implausible and highly unlikely, but not illogical," he explains. "Illogical would be, 'A group of people is coming to get me and they can fly.' [What they say] sounds crazy, but it's all logically consistent."
As for how to help people with folie a deux, it's fairly simple. For the Quaids, however, it would be devastating.
"The treatment for it is to separate them -- not medication, not psychoanalysis," Ballas says.
But it would take quite a force to tear Randy and Evi Quaid apart.
"I don't care if we wake up in Japan, as long as we're together," Evi tells Esquire. "Imagine if we didn't have each other."
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Randy's Canadian Adventure
Randy Quaid talks with reporters in Vancouver outside a Canadian immigration hearing. The 'Kingpin' star and his wife Evi are trying to evade felony vandalism and misdemeanor trespass charges back in California. More Raaaaaaaaandy >>
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Brad Pitt attends the premiere of "Megamind" at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on November 3, 2010 in New York City. "Megamind" New York Premiere AMC Lincoln Square Theater New York, NY United States November 3, 2010 Photo by James Devaney/FilmMagic.com To license this image (62316811), contact FilmMagic.com
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Brad Pitt attends the premiere of "Megamind" at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on November 3, 2010 in New York City. "Megamind" New York Premiere AMC Lincoln Square Theater New York, NY United States November 3, 2010 Photo by James Devaney/FilmMagic.com To license this image (62316804), contact FilmMagic.com
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NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 03: Brad Pitt attends the premiere of "Megamind" at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on November 3, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by James Devaney/WireImage)
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Good luck to this pair .I hope they get it squared away and Randy is back making films
Reply
So who says they are wrong?///Oh yea....prove it...thot not....your preconcieved(sic?)notion is just that...maybe those that understand their fate is determined by their own choice are right in the big "picture" of things....yea ugly truth is it
In this day & age, anything is possible.
Oh, yes! That towering talent is much missed on the big screen. That's what the world is holding its' breath for, a blockbuster new Randy Quaid movie! We can only hope and pray and hope and pray some more!
I read elsewhere the wife was extremely jealous of her sister in law, Meg Ryan. SHE (the wife) should have the big star, not that awful sister in law. There's delusional, right there.
Can anyone say......NUTJOBS. THis pair easily beats a full house.
Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan were divorced nearly 10 years ago.
Mom must be so proud of her cousin. Yeah, Evi is her cousin. Like I said, she must be so proud.
Sounds like a case of too much nose candy to me!!
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it's hard not to like randy quaid, i can't help but think that maybe his brother dennis could help out in some way.
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How could Dennis Quaid possibly help them? As the doctor said, the only cure is to separate them, and it doesn't seem likely that they would agree to that, no matter who tried to do it.
Having a mentally ill relative is very, very difficult. My stepson (who is 49 yrs old) came to live with my husband and me last year, because he was too dysfunctional to live alone, hold a job, take care of himself, or even carry on a rational conversation. Everyone was sure that if we took him in, we could "help out" and make everything better. So we did take him in, and it has bankrupted us, destroyed our peace of mind, and made our home a very unpleasant place to be. We are in our 70s, and our entire life savings have gone to pay traffic fines, feed and clothe him, and pay his medical bills and attorney's fees. I rue the day we first "tried to help out."
I have a brother that is mentally ill and has he done this to my elderly mother, who has dementia. They have lived in a world of paranoia for the past six years. As for his brother, Dennis being able to help I doubt that very much. It has cost me a large portion of my retirement savings to deal with the court system to protect my mother. Adult Protective Services was useless. The real problem is that because of personal rights the mentally ill are allowed to run amuck in our society and not get treament.
what a load of crap!
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nobody could understand him better than his brother, maybe dennis is the only person he would listen to. plus i believe he needs a little breathing room and dennis, being the more successful of the two would be in a position to provide that. randy doesn't seem dangerous, he needs help.
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He's probably not goingto listen to his brother. My mom was schizophrenic and bipolar. she walked out on us and only had contact with us when she wanted to tell us purple aliens were hiding in the bushes to abduct us. People who are that far gone can't think rationally enough to listen to a relative any more than a stranger. And often they think people closest to them such as family are conspiring against them and would therefor be more likely to listen to a stanger first.
Clark....that's what you call an R. V .
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A Regular House on Wheels!
A TENNAMENT on wheels....
I fear the only tonic for larcenous 'delusions of grandeur' is definitely a nice long sentence in the slammer- and by all means, put 'em in the same cell. THAT oughtta wake up ole Bonnie 'n Clyde.
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Touche' Zorro, I could not agree more. If they suffer from the same mental disorder, we need to have them incarcerated at the same mental facility to be evaluated individually, while perhaps keeping separate to unravel mysteries of their relationship. You would have to do this to be humane, and frankly legal.
Prison, zorro?? How can that help?There crimes are mostly misdemeanors andthe one felony is not something they need to be incarcerated for. Besides as you know, prisons teach others to be more criminal anymore.
Those two do need help--but prison will do *what* exactly to help them?