“Elvira, Mistress of the Dark” actress Cassandra Peterson said she told Brad Pitt her house was haunted before he purchased it, but that did nothing to deter the sale.
Peterson said that while she and her then-husband Mark Pierson disclosed that their Los Angeles mansion in the Los Feliz neighborhood might be haunted prior to selling it almost 30 years ago.
“We were just kind of warning him that a lot of weird things have been going on there in the house since we moved in. And he was very excited about that. He thought that was really cool,” the actress said in an interview with People.
“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,” she went on, adding, “We saw a person floating around at the bottom of the pool, things like that.”
“I know that sounds nutty. I’m Elvira. I know you expect that from me, right?” Peterson continued. “I don’t have hallucinations, I wasn’t high, and I can’t explain those things.” The celebrity mentioned that the house was in rough shape when she bought it and was almost torn down.
Pitt purchased the home for a reported $1.7 million in 1994. The A-list actor recently sold the property after listing it for $40 million following many renovations and expansions over the past three decades. Pitt and his ex-wife Angelina Jolie raised their six children in the house before they divorced in 2016.
Briarcliff Manor, as it’s named, was originally built for an oil baron in 1910. The main house is more than 5,000 square feet and has six bedrooms and seven bathrooms.
Peterson said the paranormal events were so bad when she lived there that she enlisted professional help. The “Elivra” star explained how she “had a priest come in to do an exorcism. 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.’”
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“So 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,” she recalled.
Though Pitt never publicly discussed ghost sightings or paranormal disturbances, he did mention feeling a heaviness when heading home.
“I drive out and I just feel like I’m taking off a cloak or something,” he explained during an interview with GQ in June 2022 before saying coming home has the opposite effect.
“As soon as you turn in past Santa Barbara, I feel it coming. The shoulders start getting a little higher, and I feel it. I’m not quite sure what that is and how to contend with it just yet,” Pitt said.