Hi listeners wondery in Bloomberg's hit series The Shrink next Door is moving from podcast to screen, but you can listen to all episodes right now and hear why Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd signed on to play the real people. In this unreal true story, journalist Joan Nosira investigates a decade's long story of how a New York psychiatrist deliberately and maliciously took over his client's lives. The most notable
victim was a wealthy businessman named Marty Markowitz. Over the years, Joe got to know Marty and saw direct and clear evidence of how his shrink I Kershkoff manipulated him and systematically took over his life. The Shrink next Door is an incredible, jaw dropping story about how Marty nearly lost everything to a man he thought was his friend and most trusted confidant. It's strangely funny and told terrifying at
the same time, and it's well worth a listen. I'm about to play you a preview of The Shrink next Door, but while you're listening, make sure to follow The Shrink next Door on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can Binge the entire series ad Free with Wondery plus on the Wondery app.
Every neighborhood has its share of mysteries. We can live our entire lives and barely know the people just one door down. I have a summerhouse in Southampton, a couple of hours outside of New York. This part of the Hamptons is called the Bayside. It's quiet, peaceful, a place to escape from the city in the hot summer months. Sampson and Jackie Gillot have a house on the same street as me.
My name is Jacqueline Guillot and we're married thirty five years. We're married fifty two years.
They've been coming here since the eighties. Most of the houses on our street are single story with wooden clappered fronts. But there's one house on the street that stands out for starters. It's just bigger than most of the other houses. It's two stories instead of one, and it's the only one on the street with a separate guesthouse out back. And then there's the way it looks.
The house is spectacular, with windows and windows and windows.
Everything about it is over the top.
There's a pond with goldfish lots of fish and a waterfall to the pond too.
It's bigger, bolder, brasher than anything else on the street. In twenty ten, my wife Dawn and I bought the house next door. It wasn't long before a man popped over to our house to introduce himself. He was dressed like a maintenance man, green khaki pants, a long sleeve workshire and a faded baseball cap. He welcomed us to the neighborhood and then he handed us a folder of press clippings.
I literally just took them and said thank you. But he wanted us to have them, you know, he really wanted Joe.
To have him. There were articles that a psychiatrist, doctor Isaac Hirshkoff, had written and articles that had been written about him. In mid August, an invitation arrived to a summer barbecue next door, hosted by doctor Hirshkoff Ike. This would be the last of three big summer parties he threw every year. It was a warm afternoon. I chatted with a few people, sipped on my glass of wine, and began to wander around. At some point I found
myself in the living room. There was a fake giraft bust, Venetian masks, plastic parrots hanging from the ceiling, even a giant gong. But what struck me most with the photographs, lots and lots of photographs, and in nearly every one of them there was ike Hirshkoff with a different celebrity, Ike with Henry Kissinger, ike with Ellie Wisell, ike with Brookshields, ike with Gwyneth Paltrow, even ike with OJ Simpson. It was like one of those diners where the walls are
covered with pictures of celebrity patrons. At that moment, the man himself appeared. He greeted me like a long lost friend, and said that my wife and I should come over soon for a drink, and then he was gone. Sure enough, a few days after the summer party, the same maintenance man we'd met before showed up at our door again. This time he brought an invitation for drinks. It was very formal, as if he was reading from a script.
I mean, like doctor Hirshkoff would want you to come over right at such and such a time, on such and such a day.
The formality of it blew me away, and he was very, very exacting about how it had to go. So we went one of the strangest evenings I've ever had in the.
Hamptons or anywhere else for that matter, but.
Definitely the Hamptons.
Ike and his wife Becky welcomed us in and ushered us to a round kitchen table. There were snacks laid out, carrots and celery. I served white wine. So what I remember is him talking incessantly about being a sex therapist and a celebrity therapist. And I can't remember the details, but that just really sticks in my mind that he kept going on and on about that. It was more like a monologue than a dialogue. That's what I remember. What do you remember?
I just remember thinking these people are I felt suffocated.
I talked about his work.
I've never seen anything like it. But I remember thinking he was very brazen about the details of his life, considering we were strangers, and also considering what he does. He did talk about an NBA sports guys and somebody a Yankees player. I just thought he lacked a lot of discretion given.
His feel We listened politely as he went on and on.
I just remember looking towards the door.
Finally, after about an hour. I said we needed to get home, and we got.
Up to leave, and it was very clear that I wanted a photograph.
A photograph of me.
I think he came out and said, well, we'd like to get a picture of you, and it was just Joe. It wasn't Joe and I.
So I take my picture, hit it to his wall, and then we left as fast as we could.
I remember getting to her home, collapsing on a couch or something.
Dawn told me she never wanted to go back. There was no sign of the maintenance man the night Dawn and I went over, but I knew he was still around. Sometime we'd be on our deck and we'd see him outside working in the yard. When I returned to the Hamptons the following summer, I noticed something strange at the house next door. I would see the maintenance man out on the property doing his usual work in the backyard, but ike Hirshkoff was gone. I would never see him,
or his wife, Becky, and the Hamptons again. There were no more summer parties. It was as if they had simply disappeared. And that's when I learned that everything I had thought i'd known about my neighbor was wrong. It's a wild story. That's the maintenance man, the guy who came to our door with the press clippings, the guy we saw working around the yard. That was Marty Markowitz, the same guy who had first gone to see doctor Isaac Hirshkoff as a patient nearly thirty years earlier.
You've just heard a preview of The Shrink next Door. To hear this unreal story in its entirety, plus new bonus episodes where Joe Nocera interviews the cast and creators of the TV adaptation, including Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd. Follow The Shrink next Door in Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening now