8 Celebrities Who Had Close Encounters With Serial Killers & Murderers

“I don’t think anybody else was actually aware that we had cast a mass murderer on the film.”

Stories about serial killers may seem like a topic reserved for the news or true crime podcasts but some people are unlucky enough to have gotten up close and personal with these mass murderers. These innocent victims are usually just regular people -- but on a few occasions, they’re actually familiar faces.

A handful of celebrities say that they’ve had wild close encounters with serial killers that left them in a state of disbelief. For some, they crossed paths behind bars, but for others, they narrowly escaped an attempted murder that could have cost them their lives. Thankfully, these stars all survived and have been able to tell their tale.

Read on to find out how these stars are connected to serial killers…

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1. Bunnie XO

Bunnie XO, who is married to musician Jelly Roll, recently had an unsettling exchange with convicted murderer, Wade Wilson, AKA the “Deadpool Killer.” The podcast host initially began speaking to Wilson for a potential docuseries about his crimes -- but things took a turn when he started handing out her phone number out to random women.

When she confronted him over a phone call, Wilson got defensive and “vaguely threatened” her as things escalated. He brought up things he had heard she said about him and insinuated that he knew something bad about Jelly Roll’s past. Overall, it left Bunny feeling very uncomfortable and she eventually realized it was a mistake reaching out to him.

“I feel bad for even having empathy for anybody other than the victims in this,” Bunnie said on  the Dumb Blonde podcast. “I always try to see every side of every story, but I didn't know his entire story and I just shouldn't have said what I said without knowing so many of the facts.”

2. Jack Merrill

Grey’s Anatomy actor Jack Merrill had a terrifying experience with serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who killed 33 teenage boys and young men over the course of six years. Back in 1978, Merrill was 19-years-old and living in Chicago when he encountered the killer on his nightly walk home from the YMCA. Gacy invited him to go for a ride in his car and Merrill agreed -- but things took a turn when Gacy drove into a dangerous neighborhood. Gacy then drugged Merrill, handcuffed him and took him to his house.

Gacy then brought Merrill inside his “dark” home, which he quickly “sensed was a trap.” The pair then drank beer and smoked “strong pot” before Gacy dragged him to his bedroom. Gacy put a terrifying homemade torture contraption around his neck and proceeded to rape him.

“He stuck a gun in my mouth. Then he raped me in the bedroom. I knew if I fought him, I didn’t have much of a chance. I never freaked out or yelled. I also felt sorry for him in a way, like he didn’t necessarily want to be doing what he was doing, but he couldn’t stop. We’d been there for hours. Finally, I could tell he was tiring. All of a sudden he said, ‘I’ll take you home,’” Merrill wrote in a piece for People.

Gacy did take Merrill home, but the actor never called the police because he didn’t know he was a serial killer at the time. He eventually realized Gacy was a murderer after seeing him on the news. While he experienced trauma from the horrific encounter, he made a pact with himself that he would get past it and succeed in life.

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3. Ashton Kutcher

When Ashton Kutcher was a young actor, he had a close encounter with serial killer Michael Gargiulo, AKA “The Hollywood Ripper.” Kutcher was actually set to go on a date with a woman named Ashley Ellerin who ended up being one of Gargiulo’s victims. On the day of her murder, Kutcher spoke with Ellerin at 8:24 p.m., telling her that he’d pick her up at 10 p.m. He later called her to say that he was running late but she didn’t answer.

When he arrived at her home at 10:45 p.m., Ellerin didn’t answer the door -- but he figured that Ellerin was upset with him for being late. Before he left, he noticed fresh red wine stains on the carpet, which he eventually learned was actually blood. Gargiulo had stabbed her 47 times, nearly severing her head from her neck. Kutcher had been at the home so close to the murder that Gargiulo may have still been on the property.

Kutcher later took the stand to testify against Gargiulo and helped establish a timeline surrounding the murders, which led to his conviction.

4. Sean Penn

Sean Penn spent time in jail alongside Richard Ramirez, AKA “The Night Stalker,” who killed at least 20 people during home invasions in the state of California. During his 60 days in county jail, Penn says Ramirez seemed to take a liking to him while they were in cells across from one another. Ramirez ended up getting permission to write Sean a note asking for an autograph.

“So, I get this thing from him and it says, ‘Hey, Sean, stay tough and hit them again -- Richard Ramirez, 666,’ with a pentagram and a rendition of the devil,” Sean shared while speaking at Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film & TV.

He continued, “I said, ‘You know, Richard, it’s impossible to be incarcerated and not feel a certain kinship with your fellow inmates. Well, Richard, I’ve done the impossible, I feel absolutely no kinship with you. And I hope gas descends upon you before sanity does, you know? It would be a kinder way out.’ And they gave it to him. And then my house burned down years later, and that damn thing of his burned with it.”

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5. Bryan Cranston

Bryan Cranston unknowingly got up close and personal with killer Clifton Bloomfield. Before encountering the actor, Bloomfield had murdered two people during separate robbery attempts and then got caught during another armed robbery attempt. He spent 18 months behind bars before being paroled. When he was released, Bloomfield found work as a background actor in New Mexico, including on the set of Breaking Bad with Cranston. Meanwhile, Bloomfield was also continuing his killing spree.

Bloomfield was originally cast as a background actor in the film Felon, which followed a family man who ended up behind bars for killing an intruder. While filming at the Penitentiary of New Mexico, the studio needed actors who could portray inmates -- and Bloomfield fit the part. Casting director David Cordova explained that there wasn’t enough budget to run background checks on everyone so no one knew about Bloomfield’s rap sheet.

“We were expecting actors to come to our casting calls. I’m not expecting the real thing to come through. … I don’t think anybody else was actually aware that we had cast a mass murderer on the film,” Cordova shared.

6. Debbie Harry

Debbie Harry believes that she was almost a victim of Ted Bundy, who sexually assaulted and murdered at least 30 young women. Looking back, Harry says she accepted a ride from a stranger late at night in New York City -- but upon getting inside his VW Bug, a car that Bundy was known to use, she realized something was definitely wrong and she had to escape.

“I was trying to get across town to an after-hours club. A little white car pulls up, and the guy offers me a ride. So, I just continued to try and flag a cab down. But he was very persistent, and he asked me where I was going. It was only a couple of blocks away, and he said, ‘Well, I’ll give you a ride.’ It’s the classic setup that has seen many victims, especially in the seventies, meet their end,” Debbie shared in a 1989 newspaper article obtained by Dazed.

Inside the car, Debbi quickly realized the inside handles had been removed and that it smelled terrible. She decided to slowly roll down the window to attempt to open the door from the outside. When the driver noticed, he took a sharp turn and the door swung open, throwing her into the street.

While some have questioned the validity of Debbie’s story, she stands by it and even discussed it in her 2019 memoir, Face It.

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7. Dennis Wilson

The Beach Boys’ drummer Dennis Wilson was actually friends with cult leader and convicted murderer Charles Manson. Wilson first became involved with Manson when he met several women who had become some of his followers. The musician picked them up while hitchhiking and they ended up becoming friends. In turn, the women introduced him to Manson, who had aspirations of starting a music career.

Wilson introduced Manson to music industry executives, and members of Manson’s cult even started living with him. Things took a turn though when Wilson allegedly witnessed Manson murder a man and then dump his body down a well, according to his bandmate Mike Love.

“Dennis was visibly shaken and I asked what was wrong?” Love wrote in his memoir Good Vibrations, adding that Wilson allegedly replied, “I just saw Charlie take his M16 and blow this Black [guy] in half and stuff him down the well.”

Love says Wilson was “too frightened to go to the police” and “carried that guilt with him for the last 14 years of his life.” After witnessing the alleged murder and reportedly blowing through almost $100,000 to pay for the group’s food, medical bills, and damages to his property, Wilson wanted out. He ended up moving out of his home and leaving it up to his landlord to formally evict the Manson family.

Wilson later reworked Manson’s song “Cease to Exist” as “Never Learn Not to Love” and it was released by the Beach Boys. A year later, Manson began his infamous killing spree.

8. Rupert Everett

British actor Rupert Everett could have been a victim of Dennis Nilsen, who was also known as the “Muswell Hill Murderer.” Throughout the ’70s and ’80s in London, Nilsen murdered at least a dozen young men and assaulted and dismembered their bodies. He often found his victims at bars and clubs -- one of those being the Coleherne in West London, which Everett considered one of his favorite bars at the time.

“He was in the pub that I used to go to. Yeah, so I could be dead. He used to go to the Coleherne, which was this leather bar,” Everett told Piers Morgan. “I didn’t know him, but he was there. I mean, that’s where he got two or three of his victims from.”

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