Celebrity Ghost Stories: Stars Who’ve Claimed They’ve Had Supernatural Encounters

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Celebrity Ghost Stories: Stars Who've Claimed They've Had Supernatural Encounters

They see dead people, too! Many celebrities have shared some spooky supernatural stories based on their encounters with the paranormal. Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt revealed that they had very strange experiences while living in the Playboy mansion with Hugh Hefner. “The mansion is a home that’s very intriguing for so many reasons,” Madison, who lived there from 2001 to 2008, detailed to Nylon in August 2021. “People talk about it being haunted. There’s all these weird urban legends like trafficking tunnels. It takes on a life of its own.” Marquardt, who lived in the mansion from 2002 to 2009, agreed that she could definitely feel "the nostalgia and the old energy" while living there. “I had little things happen,” Marquardt said about her experience seeing a woman standing in the doorway of her closet. “She had long, black stringy hair, very pale, very thin. She was wearing a white T-shirt that was too big on her and black acid wash-y jeans. She was more modern-day and I feel like I recognized who she was.” [jwplayer oBoEOE7Y-zhNYySv2] The Holly's World alum added that she tried to "rationalize" the various encounters for a while until she finally accepted that these things would keep happening. “For me, it took a bunch of different experiences before I thought ‘OK, there’s something weird going on here.’ I said I wish I had more proof it was real, and right away when I said that, her TV turned on by itself and the volume went all the way up,” she detailed. Looking back on it afterward, Madison considered it a sign that something would occur when she was looking to be alone in the mansion. “I would go hide in that bathroom. It was the one place in the house where nobody would go, and sometimes the toilet would flush by itself, and I always thought that was kind of weird. It always came during these weird, introspective moments at the time,” she added. “I don’t know what they were trying to tell me.” Lily Collins also reflected on how she found herself being "woken up by flashes of images," while preparing for her role as Ted Bundy's ex-girlfriend in the 2019 film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. "I didn't feel scared — I felt supported," Collins told The Guardian in May 2019. "I felt like people were saying. 'We're here listening. We're here to support. Thank you for telling the story.'" Scroll down for more stories about stars encountering the unexpected:

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Joe Jonas

"I don't know what it is about me or my brothers but we attract ghosts," the DNCE frontman said during a November 2022 appearance on The Late Late Show With James Corden. "I lived in a haunted house with a few roommates back in the day here in Los Angeles." He said that during his tenure, police would show up at the door claiming they'd gotten calls from the house asking for help. When he and his roommates checked the landline, the phone was unplugged. "Just creepy things like that," he recalled. "After we moved out, Olivia Wilde moved in. She bought the house ... they moved out pretty quick too."

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Joy Behar

“I've had sex with a few ghosts and never got pregnant,” Behar admitted during an October 2022 appearance on The View after her fellow cohosts discussed supernatural experiences.

Whoopi Goldberg quipped: “I'm just gonna let that ride. I don't know how many of you just heard what Joy just said, but I'm going to let it ride.”

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Zoe Colletti and Lana Condor

The Boo, Bitch costars revealed in July 2022 that they experienced paranormal activity while filming the Netflix series. "When we were filming in the cemetery, there was the ghost detector that we were using in the scene and it was a real ghost detector," Colletti told Entertainment Weekly. "It kept going off while we were filming in the cemetery."

Condor explained that she was drawn to the role after having “weird paranormal things” happen to her throughout her life. “I remember I had a dinner with the producers early on. I was telling them all these scary stories,” she recalled. “But yeah, listen. I'm afraid. Like, don't. Please don't. Like stop doing this. Leave me alone, ghosts. But paranormal things do happen to me and often, unfortunately.”

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Vanessa Hudgens

“I’ve accepted the fact that I see things and I hear things,” the Tick, Tick… Boom! actress claimed during an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show in April 2022, noting that she’s had “a lot” of paranormal encounters over the years. “I kind of shut it down for a while [because] the unknown is scary. But I recently was like, ‘No, this is a gift and something that I have the ability to do, so I’m going to lean into it.’”

Hudgens even completed her “first real paranormal investigation” ahead of the interview, where she met a playful ghost while visiting a cemetery.

“We found this one tombstone of a spirit that we were told is very playful,” she said. “So, I turn on [the spirit box] and I said, ‘Hi Sam, I’m Vanessa [and] this is Gigi’ … And then Gigi goes, ‘Sam, can you tell us our names?’ Then we just hear ‘Vanessa’ [she makes static sounds] ‘Gigi.’ I was like, ‘Cool, do you have anything else that you want to tell me?’

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Courteney Cox

The Friends alum recalled in March 2022 a scary experience with a ghost that led her to selling her house.

“I didn’t believe at first. But I lived in this house in Laurel Canyon, which is in L.A., obviously, and it was Gypsy Rose Lee’s house and Carole King,” Cox said during an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “So, Carole King came over to my house, and she said that there had been a divorce that was really ugly, and there was a ghost in the house. And I was, like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ But other people who would stay there with me, like friends of mine, said they felt an encounter with a woman who was sitting on the edge of the bed.”

The Shining Vale star noted that after doing a seance with King she still didn’t really believe in the supernatural, but that changed when a random UPS worker came to her home.

“I was at the house one day not being a believer. The doorbell rang. It was a UPS guy, or something, and I opened the door and he said, ‘Do you know this house is haunted?’” Cox continued. “And I go, ‘Yeah, why? Why do you think that?’ And he goes, ‘Because there is someone standing behind you.’ And I was like, ‘Let’s sell.’”

The Scream actress listed the home soon thereafter, adding, “I couldn’t sleep there alone ever again.”

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Octavia Spencer

During a December 2021 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the Oscar winner claimed that her house is haunted by the ghost of a late movie star. “I grew up watching Westerns and I bought this house, and it was owned by a guy who did Westerns, so I must have been a fan of his,” she told the comedian. “I think he is my protector. I love him because he kind of sorts out the bad people that shouldn’t be there. He runs them out."

The Ma actress said that visitors sometimes don't want to come back after staying with her, but she sees it as a test. “That’s how I know that they don’t belong there, because if you’re a person that belongs there, everybody is like, ‘Oh, your place is so welcoming, it’s so great,'" she explained.

Spencer joked that the spectral presence gets upset when she's away from the home. “When I leave for a long time, he’s a little shady. The doors close, the lights go off when I turn them on," she continued. “I love my ghost. I just don’t want you bringing your ghost to my house. I don’t want anybody’s ghost thinking they can be friends with my ghost. Because my ghost can haunt me, but he doesn’t haunt me. We have boundaries.”

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Salma Hayek

The Eternals actress revealed in November 2021 that she had a lot of unexplained things happening in her London home — including the piano playing by itself and lights going on and off — which led her to calling in a professional to rid the house of ghosts.

“I get it the worst … I’ve seen the actual things,” Hayek’s daughter, Valentina, said during an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show while her mom was chatting with Ellen DeGeneres on stage. Hayek explained that although she didn’t see any ghosts, she did call in help. 

“[They] found like 20 [ghosts],” the House of Gucci actress said, recalling the man seeing an “old lady and a child” spirit. There was also a nun ghost, according to Hayek, who claimed there are only two supernatural entities remaining in the home.

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Bridget Marquardt

The "Ghost Magnet With Bridget Marquardt" podcast host claimed that she reconnected with the late Hugh Hefner in a dream. "I was standing there and then all of a sudden, I hear him coming down the stairs and he comes running down the stairs and his arms were open wide and he gave me what we used to call his big laugh and was like, 'Oh, my darling' and he gave me a big hug," she told E! News in October 2021. "I could feel his smoke in the satin on his smoking jacket. I could smell his cologne. It was just so, so real."

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Lisa Rinna

The reality TV star explained that she believed in ghosts after several instances of strange behavior.

During an appearance on Celebrity Ghost Stories in March 2015, Rinna detailed how she used to "feel this breeze go behind me" in an old house that she lived in with her husband Harry Hamlin.

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Jenna Bush Hager

In 2018, Hager told her Today cohost Hoda Kotb about feeling like the White House was haunted when she lived there. She noted hearing "1920s piano music, as clear as day, coming out of the fireplace."

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Mike Colter

"I'm from the south and there's a lot of things that happen in the south that don't happen anywhere else," Colter told Kelly Clarkson on her talk show in 2019.

The Luke Cage star described an incident that occurred "night after night," which his mother explained as a spirit being attracted to his energy.

"When I was a kid, I used to have this thing that was sitting on my chest when I would sleep and it was keeping me from getting up and I couldn't open my eyes and I would struggle," he detailed. "I couldn't breathe very well."

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Lily Collins

"I discovered that 3 a.m. is the time when the veil between the realms is the thinnest and one can be visited," the actress explained to The Guardian in May 2019.

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Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt

“I don’t know if it’s something that follows me around,” Madison shared with Nylon in August 2021 about her history with the paranormal. “My house in L.A. is almost 100 years old. There’s all kinds of voices and door opening and disembodied voices. I enjoy it, though; I like the entertainment.”

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Celeb Ghost Stories: Stars Who've Had Supernatural Encounters

They see dead people, too! These celebrities have claimed that they have either seen or experienced a beyond-the-grave encounter, whether it be in a home, a bathroom, or the bedroom. Find out the spooky supernatural stories of stars like Jessica Alba, Kesha, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, and more.

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Ariana Grande

The "Bang Bang" singer had a terrifying supernatural encounter following a visit to Stull Cemetery in Kansas City, "which is known as one of the seven gates of hell on Earth."

"I felt this sick, overwhelming feeling of negativity over the whole car and we smelled sulfur, which is the sign of a demon," she told Complex.

Later, "weird things" would happen to Grande when she heard "whispers" one night in bed, along with "disturbing images with, like, red shapes" and this "massive black matter."

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Kesha

The singer claimed she had sex with a ghost while speaking to Ryan Seacrest on his KIIS FM show in September 2012.

"I had a couple experiences with the supernatural," Kesha claimed. "I don't know his name! He was a ghost! I'm very open to it."

Later, she told Rolling Stone that she had to undergo an exorcism. "I know it sounds like the most ridiculous story, but I went to my healer… and she told me that because of my job, I exude energy."

In October 2021, the "Praying" singer announced that she's working on a new reality series tentatively titled Conjuring Kesha. According to her statement about the new show, Conjuring Kesha will follow her and her friends as they visit "paranormal hotspots" across the globe. "We will explore life’s great mysteries and aim to catch something never before seen on camera," she continued. "My hope is to show that supernatural isn’t just the thing of myths and fables. We’re embarking on a spiritual and cosmic exploration. Come with me to experience it all.”

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Emma Stone

The Amazing Spider-Man actress claimed in a July 2014 interview with David Letterman that her dead grandfather was haunting her and hilariously leaving her some pocket change.

"My grandfather leaves quarters. It's just amazing," Stone claimed. "It's him! It's absolutely him!" She added that she had never met this late relative of hers. "It's exactly like that. It's that... But it's him! You guys, it's him."

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Peter Jackson

The Hobbit director recalled a terrifying experience from the '90s while he was filming Lord of the Rings on location in New Zealand.

"One night I woke up and there was a figure in the room," Jackson recalled to The Daily Telegraph. "She was really scary - her face was like a silent scream. She glided across the room and disappeared into the wall."

The Hollywood mastermind told his wife about it the next day and her response was even scarier: "She said, 'Was it the woman with a screaming face?' We had never spoken about it."

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Jessica Alba

"I felt this pressure and I couldn't get up, I couldn't scream, I couldn't talk, I couldn't do anything," the Sin City star said at a 2008 junket for her film The Eye. "Something definitely took the covers off me and I definitely couldn't get off the bed, and then, once I did, I screamed, ran to my parents' room and I don't think I spent many nights in that house ever again."

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Eric Bana

The actor told Us Weekly that the crew of his 2014 horror flick, Deliver Us From Evil, experienced a haunting on set while shooting the movie.

"I know for a fact the makeup, special effects team had some truly scary things occurring," Bana told Us. "They had a ghost in their workshop — there's absolutely no doubt... It got to the point where some of them would slip on the floor, they could no longer sleep there, there was no chance."

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Cynthia Rowley

The designer recalled a terrifying incident related to her Greenwich, Connecticut estate on Celebrity Ghost Stories.

"The feeling in the house was much more ghostlike," she said, adding that she would see "this sort of apparition in the corner of a room" of a lady wearing a scarf over her face.

One holiday season, Rowley escaped a fire in the home. The local fire chief later told her that the woman who once owned the mansion was the Diamond Match heiress "who was badly burned" in a blaze.

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Matthew McConaughey

McConaughey was "freaked out" when he first saw an elderly female ghost one night in his home. "When I first moved in there, I had a tent and I put it up on the floor of the upstairs bedroom with my sleeping bag and my dog," he recalled to TeenHollywood.com in 2003.

That night, he heard some strange noises including "a sound like a dime dropping from 10 feet off the ground onto a glass table." The actor ran "buck naked" but couldn't find the culprit.

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Alyson Hannigan

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum told the San Francisco Gate in 2003: "I have a ghost in my house… I don't think he died there because there's a law in L.A. that when you buy a house, if somebody's died there, they have to disclose that."

Still, reasoned the actress, "He's very friendly. My friend saw him first one night. She said, 'I don't mean to alarm you but I just saw a man follow us out of the house.' And I said, 'Well, at least he's gentlemanly.'"

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Susan Boyle

The "I Dreamed a Dream" singer claimed in a 2011 interview with The Sun that she's seen her late mother's spirit. "Her energy is still there. I've actually seen my mother in the house," she told the British tabloid. "I think she was letting me know she was all right. There was a lovely smell."

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Carrie Fisher

The Star Wars actress recalled the death of a close friend, a Republican operative named Greg Stevens, who overdosed in her mansion many years ago.

"Lights would go on and off, and I had this toy machine, that when you touched it would say, 'F--k you! Eat s--t! You’re an a--hole!'" Fisher told Vanity Fair in 2006. "And it would go off in the night, by itself, in my closet." Eventually, Fisher's friends arranged an exorcist in the house. "And after that things were fine."

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Gillian Anderson

The X-Files actress participated in a Reddit AMA, where she said she believes in an alternate universe and has even felt its presence. "I've definitely felt other spirits," she said. "I'm quite sensitive to it. And yes. But it's not something you can really talk about with too many people, especially not me."

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Kate Hudson

In the special disc set of her 2005 horror flick, The Skeleton Key, Hudson recalled a spooky supernatural story about a home in London once rented by her mom, Goldie Hawn.

"I've seen ghosts plenty of times," Hudson said. "I've seen a ghost of a woman with no face, and that was really creepy." The actress later clarified her comments on a U.K. talk show. "[It's] a fifth energy," she said. "When you see something, you are supposed to tell the energy what year it is and that they don't belong."

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Miley Cyrus

The singer claimed in an interview with Elle UK that she witnessed paranormal activity in a London apartment she rented in 2009.

"One night, my little sister... was standing in the shower and all of a sudden, I hear her scream," she recalled. "I run in there and the water had somehow flipped to hot but it was still…"

Cyrus, meanwhile, said she experienced a spooky bathroom experience herself. "I thought I had seen a little boy sitting on the sink watching me take a shower."

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Keanu Reeves

The Matrix actor admitted in an interview that he experienced a supernatural encounter as a young boy.

"I was living in New Jersey when I saw and felt this ghost," Reeves recalled. "I remember just staring at this suit, which had no body or legs in it as it came into the room before disappearing. It was a double-breasted suit in white, and I looked at my nanny, who was just as shocked as me. I just couldn't get back to sleep afterwards, and I still see the figure in my dreams."

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Joan Rivers

The late comedienne told Larry King that after moving in to her Manhattan apartment, she was always cold and her dog refused to enter the home.

"You felt awful and scary, and things were locked that shouldn't be locked," she said. "I used to say, 'This is stupid. This is nonsense. There's a reason for this.' And then at one point you'd say, 'You cannot say that anymore. Something is going on here.'" The reason? "This lady had died in the apartment. And she just was angry."

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Hillary Clinton

Washington Post political reporter Bob Woodward recalled a particular incident in his book, The Choice, from 1995 when then-First Lady Hillary Clinton consulted the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt.

According to Woodward, spiritual adviser Jean Houston was called to the White House to help Clinton reach out to the late lady Roosevelt, who spoke through the politico at one point. "'I was misunderstood,'" Clinton said at one point, as a conduit for Roosevelt.

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James Valentine

Maroon 5's guitarist claimed he saw a ghost in the L.A. country home of Harry Houdini.

"I was the only one who ever stayed there the entire time," Valentine said on A&E's Private Sessions in 2008, while the rest of his bandmates, including Adam Levine, refused. "One night, I was there with my girlfriend at the time and we were about to go to bed," he recalled. "She went upstairs.. There was a hallway that went up to the second and third floors and I saw somebody walk up... no one was there."

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Demi Lovato

The performer recalled a terrifying episode from when they were allegedly haunted on the Mack at Nite radio program. "I totally believe in ghosts," Lovato said, recollecting one horrifying incident from when they were 8 years old, involving their closet.

"When I shut it," Lovato said on the show, "I saw a little girl. She was dressed like she was from the 1800s, and was standing in my closet."

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American Idol Season 10 Contestants

The American Idol season 10 house was a scary place, according to contestants. James Durbin told reporters in 2011 that he "saw something white that looked like an arm." The singer added that he and Pia Toscano were upstairs one day when "the doors flew open."

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Adele

The Grammy winner moved into a 10-bedroom, $6 million home in Sussex, England in 2012, but the home reportedly gave the singer a big scare.

According to The Sun, the performer told a friend her home — which used to be a convent — gave her "the creeps" after she heard strange noises. The "Someone Like You" singer reportedly hired around-the-clock security personnel to help her sleep at night — in peace and safety.

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Lady Gaga

The pop star told Harper's Bazaar UK that the ghost of Alexander McQueen helped her write her smash hit, "Born This Way," after his suicide. "I think he planned the whole thing," she said. "Right after he died, I wrote 'Born This Way.' I think he’s up in heaven with fashion strings in his hands, marionetting away, planning this whole thing."