Eli Roth debuted his new series A Ghost Ruined My Life in 2021, and now the horror master has unveiled a new companion podcast. The audio series features all-new terrifying stories of haunting and supernatural torment, with everyday people recounting the hellish circumstances they’ve lived through because of otherworldly assailants. PopCulture.com had a chance to speak exclusively with Roth about the new podcast, where he explained why he was eager to tell these stories.
“The real inspiration was what Shudder did with History of Horror, where we took the full-length interviews before they were edited into the show,” he told PopCulture, referring to his other wildly popular podcast and TV series combo. “It was amazingly successful. It really drove viewership to the show. So I said, ‘We have all these amazing interviews with people that have been through this crazy experience, why don’t we make it sort of this hybrid of me narrating in kind of a radio play, but put something out there so that everybody can enjoy this show?’” Roth then revealed how A Ghost Ruined My Life became one of the “top drivers for subscription” of discovery+ and watchers of Travel Channel. “Now with the merger between HBO Max and Discovery Plus, a lot more people will be able to watch the show.”
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Roth adds how his own fondness for classic scary stories played a big part in his desire to produce the new podcast. “I love old radio play horror, and I like listening to it, and I like going on a walk or going on a drive listening to an episode and often seeing it in your mind, it’s an even scarier experience,” he said. “I wanted a way for people to really enjoy the show and to help it broaden the audience and drive people to the show. But now that the podcast is going and people are really enjoying it, the idea is that we only do eight episodes, but we’ve gotten submitted probably 500 stories from people. So there are a lot of stories that actually might just make really good podcast episodes, even if we don’t fill them as an actual episode.”
The podcast, A Ghost Ruined My Life, has two episodes out now with new ones dropping on Fridays. The newest is titled, “The White Lady,” and Roth offered some exclusive insight into the frightening real-life story. “This woman, her hobby was buying antiques and restoring them and flipping them. She found this antique dresser, and her boyfriend like picked it up and brought it to the house,” he shared. “As soon as she brought this dresser, it was a vanity mirror into the house, she started getting haunted by this white lady.”
Roth continued, “The white lady starts ruining her life and completely destroys her relationship with her boyfriend. The boyfriend’s like, ‘I can’t deal with this’ [and] broke up with her. So that’s what I wanted to show, not just ‘I’m haunted.’ It’s like, what do you do when you’re haunted? How does that play out? She almost got fired from her job, because she couldn’t function at work. So she didn’t connect the two, because why would you think your antique… Now it seems so obvious in retrospect, but at the time, if you would do this regularly, suddenly something shows up, and then she realizes that it’s completely connected and she has to destroy it, but it’s hard to destroy.”
Each episode of the A Ghost Ruined My Life podcast runs less than 30 minutes, making them a very quick listen. Roth says this was intentional so that the series could be more accessible to a broad audience. “I know how hard it is to get people’s attention and everyone’s busy, but I didn’t want it to make it a major time commitment. I wanted it as a fun, easy, listen,” he explained. “If you want to just put on the podcast if you’re driving or walking, whenever you want to listen to a good, scary, creepy story, that’s what it’s for. Make it something that’s like a good, fun, scary snack. It’s just fun and easily digestible.”
Finally, Roth sent big praise out to all the fans of A Ghost Ruined My Life — as well as The Haunted Museum, a Discovery+ series he produces with Zak Bagans — who’ve flocked to the franchise in droves. “Thank you to everyone who watched it because you gave two new scary series a chance. And because of the overwhelming response, the shows not only do they get a chance to continue, they get a chance to find their feet.” Fans can check out the A Ghost Ruined My Life podcast here. Additionally, all episodes of the Travel Channel series are currently streaming on Discovery+.
