How Britney Spears Felt About Brittany Murphy's Former Home
What comes to your mind when you think of a haunted house? Your brain likely conjures images of spooky, abandoned mansions you typically see in horror films. Haunted houses — or, at least those we see in movies — are typically situated in the middle of nowhere and are in a disheveled state. But, in real life, haunted homes come in the form of sprawling mansions that boast a sweeping view of Los Angeles, at least according to Britney Spears.
The pop princess once owned a mansion located on Rising Glen Road, atop the Sunset Strip in L.A., where she stayed when she was dating Justin Timberlake. Per People, Spears later sold the house to "Clueless" star Brittany Murphy in 2003 for $3.85 million, and the actor and her husband, Simon Monjack, lived there until their untimely deaths in 2009 and 2010, respectively.
The mansion had become a central element to the story surrounding Murphy and Monjack's unexpected deaths. Murphy collapsed in the bathroom of the home in December 2009, while Monjack was found unconscious in the master bedroom only five months later. This led people to believe that there were some outlandish things happening in the home, and apparently, Spears thought the same thing. Her supposed paranormal encounters were what caused her to sell the mansion and move elsewhere, in fact.
Britney Spears thought that the Rising Glen mansion was haunted
Britney Spears never publicly shared her thoughts on her old home, but according to her former makeup artist, Julianne Kaye, the star thought the mansion possessed something sinister. "[Spears] had that place up on Sunset Plaza — and I'm just gonna say, this is really weird ... She calls me ... I had my friend do reiki healing on her ... He left, and she swears to God that he opened some spirit portal or something, and these bad spirits had come in ... and they were trying to, like, push her down the stairs or something crazy," she said on the "We Need To Talk About Britney" podcast, per People.
Things apparently took a turn for the worse, causing the "Toxic" singer to pack her bags and say goodbye to the mansion for good. "It was so bad that she left. She went to the Casa Del Mar hotel to stay there and never went back to the house," Kaye added. "She goes, 'I know you're gonna think I'm crazy ... I know what I saw.'"
Brittany Murphy also had ill feelings toward the house. While she lived there for the better part of a decade, her husband said that she despised staying there. "She absolutely hated the Rising Glen house," Simon Monjack told The Hollywood Reporter in January 2010. "Every time we would drive up Sunset, Brit would say, 'Please, can we stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel?'"
Brittany Murphy's old home had undergone multiple renovations
Even Simon Monjack allegedly had otherworldly experiences in the mansion. "All I know is that before Simon's death he was having hallucinations that things were crawling out of his skin," his mother, Linda Monjack, told the Daily Mail in 2013. After both Monjack and Brittany Murphy died, the mansion achieved infamy since it was the location of the couple's deaths. Murphy's mother, who happened to live with them at the time, had a tough time finding a new owner. Per People, the family incurred a loss of $2.7 million upon the sale.
The property has since undergone multiple transformations in the years since their deaths. In 2013, it was completely deconstructed and the renovation lasted three years. The current state of the mansion is nowhere near similar to what it had been in the early aughts. It was finally sold to a new owner in 2017 for a staggering $14.53 million. In 2020, the mansion was sold yet again, but this time, it was only for $11.59 million.
Unless someone decides to go on a full-blown supernatural investigation at the Rising Glen house, the world will never know if it really was haunted. But, if there's anything horror movies have taught us, no amount of renovation can really chase spirits away.