Elvira Recalls Seeing Brad Pitt Train for ‘Fight Club’ with a Punching Bag in His Garage

It’s a tale as old as time and right out of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood“: An iconic actress living next door to an A-lister, who turns out to be none other than Oscar winner Brad Pitt.

Cassandra Peterson, aka Elvira Mistress of the Dark, revealed that she sold her “haunted” Los Feliz mansion to Pitt, and lived next door to him for years. The neighborly proximity also led Peterson to seeing Pitt training for 1999 film “Fight Club” in his garage.

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“One time I was walking down the street looking like a hag because I’d just gotten out of the shower. I was in a rush to get somewhere, so I ran my dogs down the street for a quick walk, and I go past Brad’s garage and he’s in there wearing only sweatpants and punching,” Peterson told People magazine. “He’s doing a punching bag. He’s got on boxing gloves and he is punching a bag.”

She continued, “He was getting ready to do the movie ‘Fight Club’! He’s in there and I really — I swear I almost fainted. I remember he goes, ‘Hey, how are you?’ and I’m like, ‘Huh.’ I couldn’t talk. I was turning red. I felt like I was fainting. He’s just so stunningly, stunningly handsome — and nice, to top it off. I have to say, Brad was just wonderful. Living next to him was great experience.”

Peterson added, “I was always on the lookout for him. I had a balcony. People thought I was, you know, I wish I had binoculars looking over there, seeing what was going on. But the first thing he did, of course, was put up gigantic hedges all around the property so no one could see him. And who could blame him?”

She had warned Pitt about the “weird things” that happened around the house that she used to own, and noted that Pitt was very excited about that” and thought the paranormal connection was “really cool.”

“I’ve seen people walking around upstairs, for example, real people just walking,” Peterson remembered. “One time [a ghost was] sitting downstairs in front of the fireplace, once walking into my bedroom and back out. We saw a person floating around at the bottom of the pool, things like that.”

Peterson had a priest perform an exorcism on the property later.

“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,'” Peterson said. “I love that he appreciated the house so much.”

Pitt recently sold the home he previously shared with ex-wife Angelina Jolie after listing it for $40 million. He had purchased the house from Peterson in 1994 for $1.7 million, and later bought surrounding lots to build out the property.

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