One of the biggest tipoffs that Dr. Ike Herschkopf is less concerned with helping his patients than he is in building up his personal status is his obsession with celebrities. The Shrink Next Door has made it a point to feature the therapist either bragging about photos he's taken with celebs or actually forcing public figures to pose for pictures with him. Case in point, poor Lisa Rinna, who looks like she wants to shove Dr. Ike in his stolen pool in the premiere episode.

The real life Herschkopf was every bit as celebrity-obsessed as his onscreen counterpart, and he has the photos to prove it. In a 2019 Bloomberg article, the creator of The Shrink Next Door podcast journalist Joe Nocera noted that the therapist filled Marty Markowitz's Hamptons home with photos of him posing with everyone from O.J. Simpson to Gwyneth Paltrow. As of 2019, those photos were piled in the basement after Markowitz finally reclaimed his home from his manipulative psychiatrist.

Interestingly, Herschkopf's obsession wasn't limited to just collecting photos with famous people — he also began treating them as well. As he gained more and more access to Markowitz's money, he cultivated his role as a therapist to the stars. He allegedly went on to treat the likes of Paltrow and Courtney Love. In a June 2019 New York Post article, Markowitz went so far as to dub him a "celebrity whore," after the doctor had him photocopy an intimate letter from Love about her custody case.