British TV star ‘freaked out’ by ghost of dead opera singer who haunts his basement

Comedian and TV personality Dom Joly is being haunted, he thinks. And not by just any old ghost, but an opera-singing one.

The 57-year-old has opened up about the supernatural star residing in his Gloucestershire home on the discovery+ series, Celebrity Help! My House is Haunted.

In the episode about his south-west abode, Dom – famed for appearing on Trigger Happy TV – explained how his son Jackson, 20, has long complained of some spooky occurrences in his basement bedroom – including, bizarrely, the faint chorus of a female opera singer.

When Jackson first told prankster Dom of the musical phenomena, he initially brushed it off.

‘Honestly, I thought he was on the wacky baccy when I first heard him talk about it,’ Dom quipped.

‘I just thought, yeah, whatever. But quite a few times he heard it and I started to take it seriously.

Dom Joly didn’t think anything of it at first – but then he heard the musical spirit (Picture: Discovery+ UK)

It turns out a famous opera singer called Agnes Nicholls actually used to live at his home (Picture: Discovery+ UK)

‘I did go down once and I heard something and it did absolutely freak me out. My wife paints down there and Jackson sleeps down there and I avoid it. I get completely creeped out by things and I do get freaked out in the dark…I can’t watch horror films.

‘This is probably a terrible idea, this whole thing actually,’ Dom added, having invited paranormal investigative team Barrie Ghai, Ian Lawman and Jayne Harris into his home to unearth the truth.

But things got eerie rather quickly, as Jayne discovered a famous opera called Anges Nicholls did live in Dom’s home in 1878.

‘That’s blown my mind a little bit,’ Dom said as Jayne relayed the news, confirming that he too had heard the singing, but joked he thought he’d simply ‘drunk too much’.

As the investigation progressed and another male spirit was contacted, Dom joked he thought they might have to ‘move house’.

The comedian isn’t laughing any more… (Picture: Getty Images)

He got a team of investigators into the property to find out more (Picture: Discovery+ UK)

The team stayed overnight at Dom’s house to see what evidence they could gather, and that evening efforts seemed fruitless until they used an extreme method of spiritual connection.

Jane suggested Barri is lowered into a subconscious state with a pen and paper, with the hope Agness will take over his pen and communicate through him…

To get the creepy ghost’s attention, they also played her very own bangers in the room – which seemed to work as Barri scrawled some letters that were, he claimed, not his handwriting.

The following morning, the team reconvened and Jayne had a remarkable recording in which you can hear the name Agnes being whispered.

‘In over 20 years of being involved in this kind of work, that is probably the clearest name I think we’ve ever captured,’ Jayne said.

With such a recording, Dom admitted: ‘I’ve got to tell you, I was very sceptical about the whole thing, but the link though… the moment we found out that there was someone, an opera singer…what are the chances that an opera singer is living in this house? I mean that’s crazy!’

The brand-new series of Celebrity Help! My House is Haunted is available to stream exclusively on discovery+ from Thursday 23rd January.

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