Is Joan Rivers selling her haunted NYC apartment for $25 million?

A slew of celebrities are going public with their paranormal experiences on Bio Channel's reality series Celebrity Ghost Stories. Recently on the show, comedienne Joan Rivers discussed her purchase of a New York City apartment twenty-odd years ago. At the time, Rivers stated, she was reeling from personal tragedy and professional disaster. She'd been fired from her late night talk show and her husband had committed suicide. Rivers needed a change of scene and fled Los Angeles for the gritty hustle of New York.

Initially, she was delighted with her new penthouse apartment in New York City, which was once the ballroom of a large mansion, and Rivers put all of her energy into renovations. One weekend, when the workmen were gone, she dropped by to check on the progress. It was a hot summer night, but the apartment was freezing cold despite the absence of any air-conditioning, and her dog refused to enter. She complained to the doorman, who said, "Oh, I guess Mrs. Spencer is back."

Mrs. Spencer, Rivers learned, was allegedly a niece of J.P. Morgan and had once occupied the entire building as her private residence. After her passing, her spirit reportedly returned and "did things" to residents, such as tear the heads off of every cherub in a neighbor's chandelier. Rivers was unnerved but went ahead with the renovations which continued into the winter months. Her discomfort in the apartment intensified. It was freezing even when she blasted the heat, and her dog continued to be skittish in the old ballroom. The workmen "didn't want to be there either."

On the advice of the "NYU Parapsychology Department", Rivers enlisted the help of a "voodoo priestess" who reportedly began communicating with Mrs. Spencer. The priestess related that the former owner still considered herself the "grand dame" of the building and was furious that current residents were defiling her home. After an exhaustive exorcism of the apartment, Rivers went door to door with the priestess offering to cleanse the neighbors' apartments. "Not one neighbor refused," Rivers said. "Everybody had a story."

Rivers claimed that Mrs. Spencer continues to visit her "just about every night" but that she now feels comforted and protected by the spirit's presence. "We're friends," said Rivers. "It's nice to know I have Mrs. Spencer to say good evening to every night."

But it looks like Rivers now wants out of her spacious uptown apartment and Mrs. Spencer may soon have new roommates to contend with. According to an article in the NY Times, an apartment Rivers bought ‘about 20 years ago' with a ‘double-height ballroom' was listed for sale over the summer for an astounding twenty-five million dollars. No mention of Mrs. Spencer in the article. This Vanity Fair interview appears to confirm that Rivers still occupied the apartment in August.

With twenty-five million dollars possibly on the line, is Rivers required to inform prospective buyers about Mrs. Spencer? A Corcoran real estate broker (who didn't want his name used) confirmed that brokers are obligated to reveal if there was a death on the property if a buyer happens to ask, but that there wasn't a law requiring brokers to disclose reports of paranormal activity.

In any case, Rivers should be advised of the landmark case Stambovsky v. Ackley in which Helen Ackley and members of her family reported to several newspapers between 1977 and 1989 that their house was infested with ghosts. Yet in 1990, when Ackley put her house on the market, neither she nor her realtor told the buyer, Jeffrey Stambovsky, about the haunting before he signed a sales contract. When Stambovsky learned about the reported poltergeist activity, he filed an action requesting nullification of the contract of sale. The New York Supreme Court ruled (on appeal) in a majority opinion that the Ackleys' public and persistent claims that their house was haunted were sufficient grounds for the buyer, who was not aware of the alleged haunting, to legally rescind the sales contract.

An email sent to Rivers' publicist asking whether the apartment is still on the market for 25 million dollars, and if potential buyers are informed that it is haunted, was not replied to as of the posting date of this article.