Andrew Lloyd Webber lived in a house with a helpful poltergeist who tidied up
David Jones
Updated on March 11, 2026
Phantom of the Opera closed last April after 35 years on Broadway. Now less than a year later another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is coming to New York to fill the void. A revival of Sunset Boulevard, Webber’s 1993 musical that starred Glenn Close as Norma Desmond, has been playing in London and last week producers confirmed that the show will transfer to Broadway later this year. Jamie Lloyd (no relation to Andrew) helmed the London production with Nicole Scherzinger in the lead (Jamie also just directed Jessica Chastain in last year’s revival of A Doll’s House). The Telegraph had an interview last week with Andrew where they couldn’t help themselves from asking if Andrew ever had a ghost in a theater (because he wrote Phantom, get it?), to which Andrew said no. But he did once have a poltergeist in his home:
Andrew Lloyd Webber says he’s never seen a ghost — but briefly once lived with one.
The renowned composer recently sat down with The Telegraph and, as co-creator of “The Phantom of the Opera,” was naturally asked if any of the theaters he owns are haunted. Webber denied as much, before making an intriguing claim about his home in London.
“I did have a house in Eaton Square which had a poltergeist,” he told the outlet in an interview Tuesday. “It would do things like take theatre scripts and put them in a neat pile in some obscure room. In the end we had to get a priest to come and bless it, and it left.”
This purportedly organized ghost starkly contrasts a traditional poltergeist, which remain unproven but are nonetheless known for their mischief, violence and noise. The term itself translates directly from German to “rapping” or “thudding” ghost.
I really only have one question: why on earth would you evict a ghost who cleans house?! I would LOVE to have an invisible entity sweep through my apartment and tidy up. To any of our poltergeist readers, please come over! I will not call a priest on you! Seriously, Andrew won the paranormal lottery and blessed it right out of his house. This is the first instance I’d heard of a poltergeist causing cohesion instead of havoc. Anytime my grandmother couldn’t find an article of clothing she wanted to wear, she would shrug and say, “Well, Leo must have borrowed,” Leo being the spirit of her late father. Exactly why he needed to borrow a blouse… was a question my grandmother never answered. I used to scoff at my grandmother, and point to her unruly/impenetrable closet as a more likely culprit than a ghost. But recently I’ve had a spoon go missing — no, I did not lose it, it has inexplicably vanished! — and my views have softened. So please, domestic-minded spirits of the world, please help me with my housekeeping.
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