Cassandra Peterson, famed for her role as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, has said her former home in Los Angeles was “haunted” and claimed to have seen spectres while living there.
The actor said she warned Brad Pitt about the paranormal activity before he purchased the 1.9-acre property from her 30 years ago, but instead of being scared, he “loved it”.
Pitt bought the mansion in 1994 for a reported US$1.7m and recently sold it for around US$40m. It comes as a number of Hollywood stars were rushing to sell their multi-million dollar properties before the city’s new “mansion tax” comes into force.
Peterson, 71, said that during her early meetings with Pitt about the mansion, she would warn him about “a lot of weird things [that] have been going on there in the house since we moved in”.
“He was very excited about that,” she told People. “He thought that was really cool.”
The horror hostess detailed the ghostly encounters she and ex-husband Mark Pierson had while living there: “I’ve seen people walking around upstairs, for example, real people just walking.
“One time, [a ghost was] sitting downstairs in front of the fireplace, once walking into my bedroom and back out.”
Another time, she claimed she “saw a person floating around at the bottom of the pool”.
“I know it sounds nutty. I’m Elvira. I know you expect that from me, right?” Peterson joked, adding: “I don’t have hallucinations, I wasn’t high and I can’t explain those things.”
She and Pierson had a priest come to perform an exorcism on the house, she told the publication.
“I had all kinds of things because it was really getting to a point of like, ‘I don’t know if I can continue to live here’,” she continued.
But Pitt was unfazed by her experiences, she said. “We were telling Brad all about that and he loved it. I mean, there are not many buyers who that would be a selling point for, but he was like, ‘Oh, that’s so awesome’. I love that he appreciated the house so much.”
The Babylon star and his ex-wife Angelina Jolie raised their six children in the LA mansion, after two years of marriage. They split in 2016, citing “irreconcilable differences”, and their divorce was finalised in 2019, but they are in ongoing negotiations over custody of their children and division of their financial assets.
Peterson described the actor as “wonderful” and “always kind and sweet” when they met three times before he bought the house.
People reported on Wednesday (29 March) that Pitt had found a buyer for the estate, which is located in the Los Feliz neighbourhood – just ahead of the 1 April deadline when Los Angeles’ Measure ULA tax came into place.
The tax requires sellers of properties of more than US$5m and US$10m to pay a four and 5.5 per cent transfer tax respectively, with all funds raised going towards public housing.
Celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D also reportedly found a buyer for her 12,565-square-foot home earlier this week. According to TMZ, she closed the sale of the house at US$7.75m, half of the original US$15m price tag.
