Usually featuring self-proclaimed psychics and supernatural investigators shrieking hysterically into night vision lenses every time their camera crew bump into furniture, ghost hunting shows on TV have largely been disappointing. This was not the case last month, however, when paranormal experts visited Toyah Willcox's home in Pershore, Worcestershire, for Celebrity Help! My House is Haunted, to find out whether the pop star's abode was supernaturally troubled, as she suggests.
The '80s pop singer signed up for the show after allegedly having experienced "persistent paranormal activity" ever since she moved to the property 20 years ago.
During filming, one investigator, Barri Ghai, was seemingly bound by an invisible force, and soon declared to have been strangled by a ghost, as he sobbed in panic.
Ghai was joined by colleagues Ian Shaw and Jayne Harris, who had set up a special "REM" recording device to detect any paranormal activity in Willcox's attic. Allegedly, they found out that Toyah's home is haunted by a entity named George, which they believed to be a soldier who fought during the English civil war in the 1600s.
Shortly after Ghai is attacked, he rushes out the attic, where the incident took place, and says, "Something just grabbed my windpipe. I couldn’t get breath in, that’s what scared me. I thought I was gonna die. I actually thought I was going to die.”
To diffuse the situation, colleague Harris tries to converse with the spirit and says, "Whoever’s doing that, can you step away please? You do not have permission to do that. Step away from Barri.”
Recalling the moment to Willcox, Ghai explains, "Straight away we got some kind of indication that there was a bit more of an aggressive male energy that was very dominant up there.
“And then, I was sat there, I was talking, and all of a sudden my windpipe was constricted. I couldn’t breathe, I was actually really scared.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Willcox "channels" the spirit George and tells the paranormal team what he would like to "do to them", before aggressively snarling and biting in their direction.
The full hour-long episode is available to watch now on Discovery+ as part of a six-episode series.
Recently, Toyah provided another boisterous cover for her Sunday Lunch series with husband Robert Fripp. The pair tackled Neil Young's Rockin' In The Free World. So far, no ghosts have been spotted in the lovers' kitchen during the series.
Watch the spooky moment below:
