Hollywood can be a scary place!
These stars came dangerously close to danger — whether they crossed paths with the wrong person, narrowly escaped death, or saved their children from a potential crisis, they have lived to tell the tale.
Read (below) to hear these spooky stories!
Related: From Drugs To Murder, Hollywood’s Darkest Moments
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Naomi Campbell
Naomi Campbell was forced to testify over ties to ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor!
In 2010, the former dictator was on trial for war crimes at The Hague in the Netherlands, and the British supermodel was called to testify over allegations that he gifted her blood diamonds after they both attended a charity dinner in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1997.
According to reports, the fashionista was totally uncooperative at first and wouldn’t speak with international authorities investigating Taylor until she was served a subpoena to testify, which she called a “big inconvenience.”
Naomi’s former agent, Carole White, and actress Mia Farrow were also called to testify in the case as they were all at the same dinner. Prosecutors believed evidence these women could share would help them tie Taylor to war crimes committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002. In part, Taylor was accused of funding the violent war through the trading of blood diamonds, such as the ones given to the model.
On the stand, Naomi denied knowing that the diamonds were from Charles. She claimed two henchmen came to her room in the middle of the night and gave her a bag of what she thought were some “dirty-looking stones,” much unlike the diamonds she was used to seeing. She later donated them to Jeremy Ratcliffe, the former head of The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Even so, she denied ever knowing who they were from.
Mia, however, testified that the model had told her about the diamonds, allegedly excitedly saying they were a gift from the disgraced leader.
In 2012, Charles Taylor was convicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone on all charges and sentenced to 50 years behind bars. In 2013, he was transferred to HM Prison Frankland in County Durham, England, to continue serving his sentence.
Ashton Kutcher
Ashton Kutcher was pulled into a trial against the “Hollywood Ripper” after a woman he was dating was murdered!
Back in 2001, Ashton was supposed to meet Ashley Ellerin for a drink. They’d spoken earlier in the day via phone, and he then arrived late to her home to pick her up for the date. According to AP News, he testified that he “knocked on the door and there was no answer.” He didn’t think much of it:
“I knocked again, and once again, no answer. At this point I pretty well assumed she had left for the night, and that I was late, and she was upset.”
He assumed she’d already left with a friend because he was late. That said, he found it strange that all the lights in her home were on, though the front door was locked. He tried knocking a few more times and peered inside:
“I thought it odd the lights were all on, I didn’t want to be the guy looking through her window.”
He thought the place looked a bit messy:
“Then I saw what I thought was red wine on the carpet.”
The next morning, her roommate returned home and discovered her dead. The fashion design student had been stabbed 47 times, per police documents. The wine Ashton saw was likely her blood. So disturbing. Because his fingerprints were on her door, Ashton was admittedly “freaking out” after he learned of the horror because he feared he’d be a suspect, but police say he was never considered one.
The case remained unsolved until 2019, when the death was linked to killings by Michael Gargiulo, AKA the Hollywood Ripper. He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 2021; however, he has remained on death row since California Governor Gavin Newsom placed a moratorium on executions in 2019.
Lisa Rinna
Lisa Rinna‘s momma narrowly escaped a serial killer! OMG!
Lois actually came on a 2019 episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to share her story.
It happened in 1960 while she was working in San Francisco. She’d become friends with a colleague named David Carpenter at the time. While waiting for the bus one morning, he invited her to come meet his newborn child. She accepted and got into his car. But she started to get suspicious when he took them down a deserted road.
Horrifically, after driving for a few miles, David attacked Louis with a knife and hammer, cutting her hands and fracturing her skull in several places. Jeez. Thankfully, a military police officer had been following David’s car and was able to step in and save her life.
Lois spent three months in the hospital following the attack, and due to neurological damage, she lost her sense of taste and smell.
David was arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison. After his release in 1969, he committed more assaults and murders that earned him the nickname “the Trailside Killer.” He was arrested in 1981, and this time, he was convicted on seven counts of first-degree murder. The criminal was given a death sentence and remains behind bars in Stockton, California, at 96 years old.
Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson‘s estranged father, Charles Harrelson, allegedly killed a federal judge! In May 1979, Charles allegedly shot and killed Judge John H. Wood Jr. outside his home in San Antonio, Texas. According to reports, he’d been hired to kill the judge by drug trafficker Jamiel Chagra ahead of the latter’s scheduled court appearance before said judge. Harrelson was arrested by the FBI and charged with murder, for which he received two lifetime prison sentences.
Prior to his conviction, Charles had also been accused of murdering Alan Harry Berg, a Houston-based carpet salesman, as per orders from a rival. He was acquitted in the murder trial. Shortly before this, though, he was charged with murder again — this time in 1968 in connection with a murder-for-hire plot against Sam Degelia Jr. in Hearne, Texas.
Charles’ first trial for Degelia’s murder ended in a mistrial. He was retried and sentenced to 15 years for being an accomplice to murder. After 5 years, he was released in 1978 — and that’s when he went on to kill the judge just one year later.
While Charles had been absent from the Huger Games star’s life for most of his childhood after abandoning the family when Woody was just about 7, Woody and his brother reconnected with their dad later in life. They even dedicated a ton of resources advocating for his retrial. After an escape attempt in 1995, Charles was taken to a maximum-security prison in Colorado and passed away there in 2007 at 68.
Angela Lansbury & Doris Day
These Hollywood sweethearts saved their children from falling in with Charles Manson!
Charles Manson was an American criminal and cult leader accused of ordering his followers to murder nine people around LA in 1969, in what is now known as the Tate–LaBianca murders. REALLY dark stuff!
Raising her kids in LA at the time was Murder, She Wrote star Angela Lansbury (pictured above) and her hubby Peter Shaw. Her kids, Deirdre and Anthony, had both started falling in with the wrong crowd at the time as they used hard drugs. And for Deirdre, that meant being around the cult leader and his “family.” Yikes! In an effort to save her kids from a dark future, the parents moved from LA to County Cork, Ireland!
The actress told DailyMail.com in 2014 that she had “no doubt” she would’ve lost one or both of her kids to drugs and Manson’s infamous influence had they not moved. Whoa! What a good decision that was then!
Angela wasn’t the only actress to take these measures. Doris Day also reportedly got her son, record producer Terry Melcher, away from the criminal after they started spending time together in the ’60s. They’d been introduced by Dennis Wilson, drummer and co-founder of the Beach Boys, and Manson was occasionally invited to the home where Terry was staying with his then-girlfriend, actress Candice Bergen. It was on Terry’s own accord that he distanced himself from Charles after the couple grew wary of him and cut ties. When Terry told his mother about this, she insisted they relocate out of fear that Charles knew exactly where they lived.
It was a good plan. After they moved out, the Benedict Canyon home was leased to director Roman Polanski and his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, where she later became one of the victims of the Tate-LaBianca murders. Heartbreaking.
Scary situations. Thoughts? Let us know (below).
[Image via MEGA/WENN/FayesVision]
