Anna Camp took inspiration from a fan favorite reality TV host while leading HGTV’s A Very Haunted Renovation.
“I have to say, I’m a huge Love Island fan, and everyone would say, ‘What are you doing now, Anna?’ And I was like, ‘I’m kind of the Ariana Madix of HGTV’s Haunted Renovation,’” Camp, 43, exclusively tells Us while promoting her new home renovation series.
“She was my hero, my reality host hero, you could say,” the Pitch Perfect star adds of Madix, 41, who has hosted Peacock’s Love Island USA since season 6 in 2024.
A Very Haunted Renovation, which premiered on HGTV on September 15, follows six designers who spend 31 days inside Fremont, Ohio’s Bihl Manor, a famously haunted Victorian home, to renovate it and win a $50,000 cash prize. The contestants must eat, sleep, live, and work inside the haunted house while tackling elimination challenges and fighting their own fears — a recipe for some serious tension.
“Sometimes when you’re watching them, and they say things like that, you’re like, ‘Wait, they’re not joking,’” Camp tells Us of contestants who declared they weren’t there to make friends. “‘Oh no, they’re really serious right now.’ And it would get really tense in those, like, elimination rooms. And I found myself, like, very involved, like personally with everyone, and I wanted everyone to just be happy.”
She continues, “I started trying to make jokes, like break the silence, and then the producer in my ear would be like, ‘Anna, this is serious, be scary,’ and I’d be like, ‘Sorry, have to snap back into character.’ But yeah, no, I got very involved watching everyone compete and say some really crazy things to each other.”
Camp is no stranger to the horror world, as she starred in the supernatural film From Black in 2023 and the slasher sequel Scream 7 earlier this year. Plus, Camp tells Us she’s a longtime fan of HGTV, making A Very Haunted Renovation the perfect project for her.
“I’ve always been just, like, fascinated by how much work that they get done and the amount of time that these designers do it in,” she explains. “So I was just very excited to jump at the chance to host the show, especially because it dealt with ghosts.”
Camp adds, “I welcome the spooky vibes and the scare stuff. And a lot of crazy things happened during the shoot too. So it was really fun.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be a haunted reality series without a few ghost sightings — something else Camp is no stranger to.
“Most recently, I’m staying in an Airbnb here in New York, and I think it’s haunted because I keep going back to my closet, and I have things hanging really nicely, and I keep going back, and there’s one shirt on the ground on a hanger. It’s like, why does this one shirt keep falling off the hanger, and the garbage can door keeps opening, and I keep pushing it back, and then two seconds later it will be open?” she shares.
“Maybe they’re following me,” Camp says of the spirits at Bihl Manor. “The ghosts are following me. As long as they’re friendly, I’m OK with it.”
New episodes of A Very Haunted Renovation air on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on HGTV.
