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Dan Aykroyd appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience this week and talked about a wide variety of interesting topics including aliens, UFOs, bigfoot, his feelings on the Ghostbusters reboot and an update on the new Ghostbusters movie that is coming out. One of the more intriguing stories that the legendary comic actor revealed during the interview was about the time he slept with a ghost.
During the interview, Aykroyd was talking about how he sold his old house to fellow actor Beverly D’Angelo. The Los Angeles home was previously owned by Mama Cass, singer in 60’s band The Mamas & the Papas. Cass Elliot died at the age of 32 in her sleep in London on July 29, 1974. But Aykroyd and D’Angelo believe that Mama Cass may still haunt her former house.
D’Angelo, best known as Ellen Griswold in the National Lampoon’s Vacation franchise, detailed her ghostly encounter on the paranormal TV show Celebrity Ghost Stories where a spirit moved her jewelry.
Before Aykroyd sold the house to D’Angelo, Dan said that he too had an unusual paranormal encounter in the home. Aykroyd said his ghostly experience probably happened while he was filming the movie Dragnet that was released on June 26, 1987.
“I had an experience one night, where something got into bed with me, I was alone, and I don’t know what went on there.” Rogan asked if the encounter was sexual, and the actor replied, “Well, it might. I think I was being come onto there.”
“It did try to come onto me, and I didn’t refuse it,” Aykroyd said. When asked if he resisted the sexual advancements by the ghost, Aykroyd replied, “You know what, I snuggled up next to it and went to sleep.”
Aykroyd said he “felt a shape” and “saw the depression in the mattress” of the spirit in his bed. “I felt something next to me, I felt a form next to me,” Dan told Joe. “I felt a weight next to me,” he said
Aykroyd said that he was not intoxicated on the night of his paranormal encounter and was “working on a picture and was in bed early.”
“There were two spirits that might have been there, maybe Mama Cass herself, although she died in London,” Aykroyd revealed. “And then there was another guy that apparently, there was a rumor, that he died of a drug overdose at a party and they buried him in the hillside.”
“And my daughter saw him walking with a little red-haired girl down the hall once, and we think that maybe he might have been there,” Dan said.
Aykroyd explained that when he sold the haunted house to Beverly D’Angelo, that by California law that he had to “divulge any unusual activity in the house.” He informed D’Angelo that he had encounters with spirits while he was living in the home.
If you remember in the original Ghostbusters movie, Dan Aykroyd’s character Dr. Raymond Stantz, had a sexual encounter with a female specter that made him cross-eyed.
Aykroyd explained that his grandfather in Canada was a paranormal researcher in the 1920s and that is how he was given the inspiration to write Ghostbusters.
Aykroyd also talked about Ghostbusters and gave an update about the latest chapter of the supernatural comedy. When asked about the 2016 Ghostbusters movie that featured an all-female cast including Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon, Aykroyd said: “Great film. Really good film, those girls were superb.”
The 2016 chapter of the paranormal-hunting team directed by Paul Feig received some backlash from the fanbase of the original Ghostbusters, which starred Dan Aykroyd.
Aykroyd, who was a writer and executive producer on the 2016 Ghostbusters movie, admitted there were some problems when filming. “You know, Paul Feig and I, and Ivan [Reitman], we had our little conflicts, there were things that we thought that we didn’t think would work, why shoot it, why spend the money?” But you know he’s a director, we have to have faith.” So there was a little conflict there, but all of that is in the past.”
Aykroyd said Feig “treated the movie with a tribute, kind of legacy, respect, and there were some new spirits in there.”
Then Aykroyd gave an update on the new Ghostbusters movie that is coming out in the summer of 2020. The next installment of Ghostbusters will be written and directed by Juno director Jason Reitman, who is the son of the original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman.
Aykroyd said that some of the original cast would be in the new Ghostbusters movie and Joe Rogan asked about Bill Murray. Aykroyd skeptically replied: “Mmmm… we’re… we’re hoping.”
You can watch the entire Joe Rogan Experience interview with Dan Aykroyd below.