He thought the call was a prank. Then came a two-hour interview, a highlight reel of his stunts and an unexpected change of heart back home.
ByMaggie Ekberg
November 4, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Chaz Carti says his 2021 Dr. Phil appearance ultimately helped his content career by silencing critics and easing his parents’ objections to him skipping college.
- Speaking on the Creators Inc. Podcast, the TikTok prankster said the show used a highlight reel to make him look “so crazy,” but he stayed professional as Dr. Phil and another guest criticized him.
- Carti traded a Division I lacrosse commitment for content creation, and Creators Inc. founder Andy Bachman teased a potential hosting collaboration during their interview.
Most people don’t go on Dr. Phil expecting to come out on top. Chaz Carti says he did.
During the Nov. 2 episode of the Creators Inc. Podcast, the Georgia native revisited the experience with host Andy Bachman, sharing what happened behind the scenes of his unexpected television debut.
Carti had gone viral during the pandemic with the bucket prank trend and confetti stunts in store aisles, racking up views on TikTok while still in high school. Then the phone rang.
“Dr. Phil calls me. I thought it was a joke,” he told Bachman. “I thought it was like my friends pranking me cuz I’m pranking everybody.”
It wasn’t a prank. Carti was 17 when he showed up on the Jan. 7, 2021, episode, “New Year … New You,” where his dad asked Dr. Phil to talk him out of skipping college to build a career on social media.
“My parents were pissed,” the prankster said of their reaction when he walked away from lacrosse. “They’re like, ‘What are you doing? You’re so good at this. Are you serious? Like, what are these videos?’”
Because of COVID-19 restrictions, Carti appeared on the show over Zoom, and he says the segment quickly turned against him.
“[Dr. Phil] brought some other guy on there and they’re just bashing me,” he recalled. “They made this like highlight reel of me making me look so crazy.”
Even so, he kept his cool. “I handled it professionally. I didn’t really come at them. They came at me.”
Ironically, the appearance ended up working in his favor.
“After I was on there, everyone kind of like shut up. All the haters shut up. My parents finally shut up,” he said. “They’re like, ‘You’re on TV.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s what it took to be on TV? Oh, now it’s not a bad thing? Now I do social media. Now I’m on TV. Now you guys are finally off my a** a little bit.’”
Carti isn’t the first internet personality to question how Dr. Phil portrayed him. In 2021, Bhad Bhabie accused the show of altering some of her responses during her viral 2016 appearance, arguing that viewers had only seen half of what happened.
The host has had a rough stretch since then. His daytime show ended in 2023, and his media network, Merit Street Media, was ordered into liquidation last year.
Carti, meanwhile, kept building. He told Bachman he quit a Division I lacrosse commitment to pursue content, spent a year filming fake survival videos along Georgia’s coast and livestreaming from Lake Lanier, where he says he averaged around 10,000 viewers.
“You have to be you,” he said. “No one’s like me. No one has my story. No one has your story, you know?”
Bachman, whose talent firm Creators Inc. reports more than $2 billion in creator sales, said the 23-year-old’s path sounded less like a prankster’s and more like a founder’s. “I really feel like I’m talking to an entrepreneur,” he said.
The talent manager also hinted at a future collaboration. “I might be working on something that we’re going to need you to come host here at Creators Inc.,” Bachman said. “Stay tuned on that.”
Carti didn’t hesitate. “I’d be honored.”
