As she tells it, Stacey Lynn Cripps was sitting at the bar of a West Bloomfield restaurant with a friend one evening. Simultaneously, she was carrying on a side conversation with Glenn Frey.
As in Detroit-born Eagles frontman Glenn Frey, who died of pneumonia eight years ago.
Suddenly, surprisingly, Bob Seger enters the restaurant to pick up a carry-out order. He takes a moment to chat with some patrons who recognize him, but then, before he leaves, Seger walks over to Cripps, gives her a warm hug, and whispers in her ear, “Thank you.”
Unaccustomed as she is to being hugged by total strangers, even Detroit celebrity ones, Cripps quickly realized what was happening: Seger was thanking her for maintaining contact with Frey. And Prince helped make it possible.
“I understand Bob was a regular there, but what brought him in that night?” she ponders. “I know he and Glenn Frey were best friends, and Glenn started connecting with me in meditation right after he passed. He calls me Kid.
“Now, I had just given a reading from Prince to a close family member that week, so Prince was like right there. I could connect with him in a second, that’s how strong he was, and he and Seger were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the same year. When Seger walked in I began to get chills all over my body, which is kundalini, the validation of a spirit very close and strong. And after he hugged me both Prince and Glenn came through with messages. I would love to connect with Bob someday. When Prince says he’s going to connect me with someone, he means it.”
In case you haven’t received the vision yet, Detroit native Stacey Lynn Cripps claims to see — and hear from, and talk to — dead people. A nationally known spiritual medium and mentor, she will demonstrate her alleged gift to believers and skeptics alike in a homecoming “Awaken to Spirit Live Stage Event” at 7 p.m. Friday at Meadow Brook Theatre. She’ll be joined by musical guests Gene Hicks (aka G-Da-Man), country-rock artist Lia Caton, and Detroit native pop-soul singer Tina Galley.
Cripps is perhaps best known for her connection to “Rock ’n’ Roll Heaven,” asserting that many deceased musicians use her as a channel to communicate with their loved ones and others. Beyond Prince and Frey, she says she’s had ongoing connections with Elvis Presley (possibly because her late father was an Elvis impersonator), Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin (who calls Cripps “Darlin’”), David Bowie, John Lennon, and many others.
“I’m proud to be able to continually connect with musicians,” says Cripps. “These legends and greats in the music and entertainment industry are still mentoring their protégés and friends from behind the Heavenly Veil, whether they are conscious of it or not. I think what the musicians love is that it’s such a clear channel with me. I let them do what they want, I don’t change anything, I just say it as they say it. And then they blow people away when they come through.”
Her conversations with the Queen of Soul have been especially memorable. “She contacted me the day she passed,” Cripps remembers. “Since Prince in 2016, that often happens with musicians. I didn’t know she’d passed until Siri went off and said, ‘Franklin is here.’ I’m thinking, ‘Benjamin Franklin?’
“Then I heard the voice. ‘Hi, Darlin’, it’s Aretha. Whitney brought me.’ She shows up on stage with a feather boa, a fur coat, and starts talking to me nonstop.
“‘Honey, you need to eat some fried chicken.’
“‘I said, ‘Aretha, I don’t eat fried chicken.’
“She said, ‘Well, it’s in your refrigerator,’ and I’m like, ‘No it’s not.’ But an hour or two later, suddenly I am craving fried chicken. I open the refrigerator, and there’s a bucket of wings there! My husband got them and I knew nothing about them. They were so good.”
During another conversation, she says Franklin reminded her “You were there while filming” when the 1980 movie Blues Brothers, in which Franklin had a cameo role, was made. “I had no idea what she was talking about,” Cripps says, “but then I remembered my dad took my siblings and me to downtown Chicago while the movie was being shot because we were with an agency and they may have needed some child actors as extras. I had completely forgotten.”
However, Cripps’s true passion is helping parents survive the loss of loved ones. It was such an occurrence that prompted her to give up a lucrative career as an executive search recruiter in Chicago and develop her gift after her lifelong best friend, Heather Little, was killed in an auto accident.
“I told her mother that a woman sat with Heather as she died,” Cripps says. “She said she never believed the EMTs when they told her a stranger got out of her vehicle and climbed in next to Heather. I told her Heather was with angels; she said Heather collected angels for a year before she passed. So that was the first time I gave a reading, at 26. I didn’t know what a reading was. I didn’t know what a medium was. But I didn’t think it was a gift. I just thought everyone has this. It was just normal.”
Several mentors, including Detroit’s own self-help legend Dr. Wayne Dyer, helped Cripps refine and expand her skills over the years. “I’m meant to help people heal,” she declares.
“Definitely an entertainer or two will come through during the live event for somebody in the audience, but you should expect to experience loving, healing messages from loved ones to touch the hearts of families. To let them know our loved ones are well and still helping, guiding and loving us.”
Do you ever feel like you’re never alone? “I am never alone,” Cripps muses. “ But it’s a beautiful gift, because none of us are ever alone here. All our loved ones are with us.”
The Awaken to Spirit Live Stage Event with spiritual medium and mentor Stacey Lynn Cripps, featuring special guests Gene Hicks (aka G-Da-Man), Lia Caton and Tina Galley, runs from 7-9 p.m. on Friday at Meadow Brook Theatre, 378 Meadow Brook Rd., Rochester. General admission tickets are $65. More information is available at 248-377-3300 or bit.ly/3MNfl4M.
