These Celebrities Share Their Chilling Ghost Encounters

Have you ever had an experience with a spirit from the other side? While these strange brushes with the dead seem to happen more frequently during childhood, there are some people who are more sensitive to supernatural energies their whole life. We've all heard about how pop star Kesha had sex with a ghost (and if you haven't, where have you been?), but there are plenty of other famous faces that have gazed through the veil.

A singer healing ghostly trauma through song? An actor reliving the pain of a gruesome death? Here are eight incredible celebrity encounters with ghosts.

The acclaimed Ozark actress was a skeptic until she had her own paranormal encounter in New York City's famously haunted Belasco Theatre. The stories state that, since his death back in 1931, David Belasco, the theater's founder, has been spotted watching rehearsals from the balcony. The ghost of a woman—allegedly a chorus girl who died a mysterious death—is also spotted on occasion.

Laura Linney had been warned about the ghost activity at the theater, but when she looked up to the upper balcony during dress rehearsal, she didn't expect to see the woman in blue. After looking briefly back at her costar, Linney turned back to the balcony only to find it empty. When she brought the sighting up to the house manager later, he asked which gender the ghost was. Upon learning it was a woman, he reportedly responded with a knowing, "Blue dress, blonde hair?"

Singer and actor Demi Lovato has had no shortage of otherworldly encounters. Their connection to the spirit world began in childhood. One night, they reportedly saw a little girl dressed in 18th or 19th-century clothing standing in the closet. They also claimed that growing up, their dad's belt would frequently go missing, only turn back up again coiled up neatly on the bed. While the family was sleeping, Lovato's mom would also hear footsteps in the middle of the night.

As chilling as these experiences might have been, Lovato didn't shy away from their connection to the dead. They claim that not only is their Texas home haunted, but they actively go ghost hunting. During a ghost hunting segment on their Peacock show Unidentified with Demi Lovato, they felt a spirit present in the room. When the spirit refused to communicate with the male ghost hunters in the room, Lovato identified trauma as the root cause of the disconnect. Once the men left the room, Lovato sang to the ghost, causing an uptick in noise from the electromagnetic field detector.

While he was doing press for his movie Ghosts of Girlfriends Past back in 2009, Matthew McConaughey opened up about the spirit that once haunted his home in Hollywood. Prefacing that he "was not even under the influence," he said that he saw a woman that he calls Madame Bleu. As he tells it, Bleu wasn't at all happy to see him in return.

Taking a reasonable approach to the awkward cohabitation, McConaughey told the ghost that she could do as she pleased, but that he was there to stay. Guests visiting him over the next couple of weeks all reportedly felt her presence down the hall. However, after a while, the sightings of Madame Bleu fell away. Now her favorite room is beloved by McConaughey's guests.

In order to prepare for her role as Princess Margaret in season 3 of The Crown, Helena Bonham Carter felt it was important to get the inspiration's blessing. The fact that Princess Margaret was dead wasn't going to stop her. With the help of a psychic medium, Carter reached out to the royal to speak about the part.

According to Carter, Princess Margaret was pleased that Carter was in the role, rather than the other actress that had been considered. The backhanded compliment assured Carter that she was truly speaking to Princess Margaret, as in life she had a habit of putting someone down through compliments.

Beyond that, Princess Margaret had one piece of vital advice for the actress: "Get the smoking right."

When he was a young child, actor Keanu Reeves has a most excellent adventure in his New York City home. He says that he must have been about six or seven years old at the time, as his family has just moved from Australia. He was hanging out with the nanny, Renata, while his sister was sleeping when he saw it—a jacket waving through the doorway. It was empty, with no body or legs attached anywhere. Just there one second and gone the next.

So young, he had been mostly confused by the experience. But when he looked over at Renata at saw her sitting there in terror, he knew that the ghostly encounter had been real.

While he stars as one of the series leads in CBS' Evil, Mike Colter is no stranger to the paranormal in his real life, either. The actor grew up in the south, and claims that things happen there "that don't happen anywhere else." He said that when he would go to bed as a child, some supernatural force would be sitting on his chest. It would prevent him from getting up, opening his eyes, or breathing properly.

This was a frequent occurrence for Colter in his youth. When he spoke to his mother about it, she told him that the cause was a hag, drawn to him by his unsettled spirit.

Ewan McGregor was attending drama school in London when he had his chilling ghost encounter. As it was around Easter and Passover, everyone was away for the holidays. Alone, he kept himself busy by stealing someone's VCR and watching Blue Velvet. All was going well until he started running a bath.

As he was leaning in the doorway in his robe, he felt a sudden pain in his back. Startled, he ripped off the robe to find the back of it marred by a black burn mark. Besides the mark, there was no indication it had caught fire, but it was definitely singed, and he had a burn on his shoulder, too. When he later told the story to the man who lived below him, the neighbor informed McGregor that the former owner of his apartment had been a recluse who died after his kettle started a kitchen fire and caused severe burning to his back.

While actress Lily Collins claimed to have once stayed in a haunted hotel in Ireland, there's a more incredible ghost encounter in her history. In 2019, Collins portrayed Ted Bundy's ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer in the film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. During filming, Collins reportedly began to be woken up in the middle of the night by flashes of images. Looking into the strange happenings, she found out that the veil between realms is thinnest at 3 am—the time when she was being roused from her sleep.

Collins says that she believes these visions, akin to the aftermath of a struggle, were visits from the victims of Ted Bundy. As strange as these occurrences were, they didn't strike fear in Collins. Instead, these visits made her feel supported. According to her, these spirits carried the energy of someone saying, "We're here listening. We're here to support. Thank you for telling the story."