The Two Sides of Supernatural Superstar Amy Bruni

Amy Bruni’s not like a regular mom. She’s a “cool” mom. 

“I’m definitely that weird parent at school. I mean, people like me, but it’s definitely like, ‘Her mom is the ghost hunter,’” Bruni says with a laugh while sipping a mimosa. “It’s the first thing that comes up at every school gathering.” 

The paranormal investigator TV star has managed to broaden her already considerable reach with a podcast, a national speaking tour, travel company, online membership community and a newly released book, Food to Die For: Recipes and Stories from America’s Most Legendary Haunted Places.

But her unorthodox career hardly happened by accident. 

Long before manifestation was de rigueur in the “woo woo ’verse” and podcasts were ubiquitous, Bruni spent her off time from her job as a project manager at a health insurance company — living what she describes as “the most normal, boring life” — exploring all things spooky and unexplained and delving deep into haunted histories. Back then, she reported her findings on a podcast she produced from her Northern California home. 

Her interest in the supernatural began as a young child, growing up in a house that was haunted with parents who leaned into the unknown. In 2006, Grant Wilson, a founder of the Warwick-based paranormal research group TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) and star of the Syfy series “Ghost Hunters,” caught wind of Bruni’s broadcast and asked her to help produce their radio show, Beyond Reality Radio.

“To put into perspective how long ago it was, Grant reached out to me on MySpace,” Bruni says. When “Ghost Hunters” headed to California to film, they called on Bruni to work alongside the team investigating the USS Hornet, a legendarily haunted U.S. Navy aircraft carrier-turned-museum, and Wolfe Manor, a former sanitarium.  

“I helped them with those two cases and basically never went home again,” says Bruni. 

She was offered a position on the show, and save for an awkward conversation with human resources, her hobby became her career. “I had to go to my health insurance company exit interview where I was like, ‘I’m going to be on this reality show looking for ghosts,’ and the woman just looked at me,” says Bruni. 

ON THE ROAD 

She spent the next seven years on the road as many as 300 days a year, filming in almost every state in the country. But amid all the places she explored, there was just something about Rhode Island and its surroundings; its blend of coastal beauty and bucolic tranquility that reminded her of her West Coast roots. 

Plus, along with the rest of New England, the Ocean State is home to a mother lode of historic and curious haunts, ensuring there was plenty of work. 

“I love the history, I think it’s absolutely stunning, and also, it’s very haunted,” she says. “New England to ghost hunters is like Hollywood to actors.” 

She ended up meeting her partner, Jimmy, who at the time was a bouncer at the old Club Hell in Providence. They had a daughter, Charlotte, now twelve, and planted roots in a centuries-old home on Aquidneck Island with, as one might expect, wide creaky floorboards and an intriguing history. 

And while she has a sense of wanderlust, the place centers Bruni. “I love to travel; it’s funny though. Once I moved into my house here, because I live in this 300-year-old house that I love so much, I definitely find myself not wanting to leave as much,” she says. “I feel like I live in a fairy tale.”

PLANTING SEEDS 

Much of that fairy tale feeling is because Bruni laid the groundwork early on to be able to call the shots one day — and that day is now. 

“Doing ‘Ghost Hunters,’ I never assumed TV was forever, but I knew that I wanted to continue working and doing what I love, and so I started thinking right away, ‘What can I do with this besides TV?’” she says. 

Bruni left the show in 2014 after her seventh season, motivated by a desire to slow down and spend more time with her daughter, who was then a toddler. Later that year, she created Strange Escapes, a travel experience that brings together investigators and paranormal enthusiasts to places known for hauntings. Travels have taken them to Mackinac Island, Michigan; Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; the Stanley Hotel in Colorado that inspired the film, The Shining, and on multiday cruises and international destinations. 

Closer to home, she’s led Strange Escapes investigations of the Lizzie Borden House in Fall River, Massachusetts, and in one of the best-known haunted hotels in the country, the Mount Washington Resort in New Hampshire. 

“I think it’s the most haunted place I’ve ever been,” she says. “It’s a different experience every time I go. I think there are a number of ghosts there.”  

Julie Tremaine met Bruni nearly a decade ago through a mutual friend and hit it off right away. 

“Always being the weird kid who was reading way too scary books, like reading Stephen King in middle school, I was like, if there’s a ghost hunter in town, I’m very curious to meet this person,” says Tremaine, a travel journalist and writing partner for both Bruni’s latest release and her 2020 book, Life With the Afterlife: 13 Truths I Learned About Ghosts. 

Tremaine experienced her first Strange Escapes trip with Bruni not as a friend but as a journalist. “I was so intrigued by the idea that people would all get together for a weekend event and just go hang out in a haunted place and hopefully look for ghosts,” she says. “I have always been a fan of weirdness and the paranormal very casually, but never looked any further than ‘I like scary books and movies.’ I never tried to learn about it in a serious way. It never even occurred to me that you could learn about it in a serious way before I became friends with Amy.”  

She was struck by the scientific, evidentiary approach Bruni and other experienced investigators use, steering clear of attempting to prove anything to anyone. “And that’s something that I’m very sensitive to as a journalist; constantly vetting your sources, making sure that you are pulling from people who know what they’re talking about and who can be trusted, and these voices are legitimately authentic.” 

But she adds that the craft of paranormal investigation should be personally fulfilling more than anything else. “It’s one of [Amy’s] main pieces of advice for people who are into weird stuff: Don’t try to change anyone’s mind. If you’re in it to change peoples’ minds, then you’re in it for the wrong reasons.”

A HAUNTING SCHEDULE 

Not trying to convince skeptics, or anyone, has been a philosophy Bruni’s held throughout her career. 

“I think some people go into it wanting to be kind of freaked out and scared, but the more you do it, the more you realize, ‘Oh, this is an afterlife belief system kind of thing,’” she says. “It’s really deep, actually.” 

It’s an approach palpable throughout “Kindred Spirits,” the documentary reality series she launched in 2016 (first airing on TLC, then the Travel Channel) where Bruni and her co-star, Adam Berry, investigate places with reports of supernatural activity. 

As the creator and executive producer, Bruni was able to build a production schedule that suited her demands as a working mom, although filming is still grueling. 

“We are on location usually for five to seven days — and people see forty-three minutes of that on TV,” she says. But making her own schedule means substantially less travel. 

“It’s a lot of work, but it pays off because I get to be home more. I’d rather be traveling for a couple of months nonstop and then the next ten months be home.” 

The show has aired for seven seasons, and while they’re not currently shooting, Bruni’s not ruling out an eighth season. 

Chip Coffey, an Atlanta-based psychic and cast member of “Kindred Spirits,” describes Bruni as a dedicated investigator. “Many times we agreed upon things, but sometimes, if we had a different way of looking at things, we didn’t have a problem expressing that,” he says. “I love Amy. She’s weird, like a lot of people that are in this industry, she’s funny and she’s smart, and as far as her investigative protocol, she’s really good at what she does.”  

There’s an intrinsic curiosity about the metaphysical, he says, about the connection between the living and the dead, about what lies beyond. 

“Death is the greatest mystery in life. That’s just the truth. No one really knows what happens beyond our last breath. No one knows. I mean, you can have your belief system or whatever, but really it’s the biggest secret. It really is, and we can have theories, we can have beliefs. But none of us really knows, right?” he says. “We’re dealing with a lot of hypothesis and conjecture and beliefs, and you know, I never try to force my beliefs on someone, and I know Amy doesn’t either, and neither do most people in this weird sort of profession that we’ve gotten ourselves involved in.” 

PARANORMAL PERKS 

This “weird sort of profession” might be peculiar to some, but it’s also massive. This fall, Bruni embarked on her third speaking tour, visiting thirty theaters to talk about her TV appearances, her most extraordinary investigations and other eerie and eclectic experiences. 

“Amy has the best stories to tell,” says Tremaine. “She has the most fascinating knowledge and perspective on a topic that there’s not a lot of great books written about.” 

It’s exhaustive work, Bruni admits, but also incredibly rewarding. 

“I do love the tour. It’s been a great way to meet a lot of folks in person, and I meet so many fans who are so into ghosts. There was a long time where it was this weird thing, but it’s very mainstream now.” 

The timing isn’t by accident: It’s officially spooky season. “Everyone wants to talk to me in September and October — it’s like my Christmas,” she says. “The irony is, it’s my favorite season and I’m never home for it.” 

Bruni’s podcast, Haunted Road, is wildly popular (like, six seasons, sixty-plus episodes and more than ten million downloads popular) and earlier this year, she launched the Paranormal Circle, an online membership community where for $8–$10 a month, members can participate in live streaming investigations and roundtable discussions, ask Bruni questions, and get access to meet-and-greets at some of her personal appearances.

As she’s become one of the best-known paranormal investigators in the world, she’s also one of the most recognizable, especially with her crimson locks and perfectly blunt bangs. Bruni is a bona fide public figure, and while she shares her life, adventures, explorations and behind-the-scenes content (plus cats!) with her nearly 800,000 followers across her social media platforms, she also relishes her privacy. 

“The ghost hunting community is very big,” she says. “The fandom is very loyal, and I think they just really resonate with the fact that I’m normal and down to earth. I’m a mom. They follow me on social. They see me doing day-to-day things.” 

Tremaine agrees.

“I think the most surprising thing about Amy is that she is such a normal person,” she says. “Everyone expects professional ghost hunters to be very spooky and gothic; basically like Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice, right? Always wearing black, always very somber, very goth, and Amy’s like this coastal Newport glamorous lady who, if she’s not somewhere super creepy in the middle of the night looking for a ghost, she’s on the lawn at Castle Hill drinking chardonnay.”

But Bruni is careful not to overextend herself. “It’s very important to me that I don’t come off as selling stuff all the time,” she says. “I share a little bit of my life. I share some spooky stuff, and then I let people know what I’m doing, but I try to do it in a very tactful way.” 

Between bites of chocolate chip pancakes, Charlotte tells me she’s used to her mom getting recognized in public, especially at Walt Disney World, and it doesn’t bother her at all. In fact, she’s more interested than ever in the unexplained and is considering following in her mother’s footsteps. (She’s also become a fan of the nation’s swankiest airport lounges, a perk of traveling by her mom’s side.) 

HAUNTINGLY DELICIOUS 

Years ago, Bruni came across a facebook post from the Fall River Historical Society that she couldn’t turn away from. “[They] posted a photo of Lizzie Borden’s meatloaf recipe card that she wrote herself. It said ‘Lizzie’s Meatloaf.’ I was like ‘Oh my God!’ and I got this idea: I wonder how many other recipes there are associated with haunted locations?” she says. 

Her colleagues told her not to bother, that the “food and ghosts” concepts had been pitched repeatedly with no interest. “But how many places are there where people are like, ‘I don’t want to go somewhere haunted’ and yet they’ll go eat dinner at the White Horse Tavern? So I thought, what if I could do a cookbook of all haunted locations, and I’ll call it Food to Die For?” Her manager pitched it to HarperCollins and the publishing house bought it instantly.

She turned to Tremaine, who has a half-dozen cookbooks under her belt, and the two got to work researching and recipe testing. 

“I’m actually a pescatarian, so she got to test all the meaty recipes,” Bruni says. 

While the majority of the recipes are terrific — like lobster mac and cheese from the White Horse Tavern and Mrs. Goudie’s pecan pie from Doris Duke’s family cook at Rough Point — some are downright ghastly, like the nutraloaf served to prisoners at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.

BUILDING A COMMUNITY 

Through her work, Bruni has been creating a community while blazing trails. 

When she first joined “Ghost Hunters,” she was one of few women on-screen in the paranormal space. On a documentary project she recently created and shot, the entire crew was made up of women. 

“It was important to me to have an all-female team,” she says. “I’m not someone who likes to choose based on gender necessarily, but the reality is, our audience is predominantly female, and I just want them to see that we can do this.” 

The paranormal community includes a broad range of ages, identities and levels of passion. But Bruni has created a community where she’s the common denominator, in large part due to the welcoming “spirit” she extends. 

“When you bring up ghosts at a regular dinner party — and I know from experience — people will look at you very strangely,” says Tremaine. But Bruni has helped others find their people and build deep friendships that perhaps only the curious exploration of the otherworldly brings. 

Throughout the years, Coffey says he and Bruni have gotten to know each other’s partners and he’s watched Charlotte grow up. He describes the relationship as “framily” — friends that are like family.  “It’s just been this weird little microcosm of society in which we’ve created these bonds that are very, very life sustaining and meaningful and that’s how I feel about Bruni,” says Coffey. “She’s a good soul, and I’m really blessed to have her as my friend.” 

 

GET IN THE SPIRIT

Rhode Island sites investigated by Amy Bruni.

North Providence Union Free Library

Fort Adams, Newport

The White Horse Tavern, Newport

Providence City Hall

Cumberland Public Library 

Seaview Terrace/Carey Mansion, Newport

The Newport Opera House

Rose Island Lighthouse, Newport

The Conjuring House, Burrillville

The Curious Case of the Valley Inn 

The Valley Inn in Portsmouth is one of Amy Bruni’s favorite haunted spots. The restaurant, known for serving a solid pizza and killer — ahem — lobster ravioli was featured on season five of “Kindred Spirits,” and she retells the intriguing story in Food to Die For. 

While researching with the Portsmouth Historical Society, Bruni learned about the murder of Rebecca Cornell in 1673, which took place inside the home that is now the restaurant. Rebecca was the family’s seventy-three-year-old matriarch, until her son, Thomas, took her life. As explained in Food to Die For, during Thomas’ trial, his uncle testified that his sister’s ghost appeared to him and said, “See how I was burned with fire.” Thomas was convicted and hung for his crime. 

“It’s the only example of an actual court trial that used spectral evidence — using the testimony of a ghost to convict a person of a crime,” says Bruni’s writing partner, Julie Tremaine. “I’ve driven past the Valley Inn like 15,000 times, and I never thought, ‘This is a historically significant spot because a ghost convicted a person of murder.’ Especially in a place like Rhode Island, everywhere you turn there’s an incredible historic story and there’s a place of serious historic significance, but there is some spooky stuff in between all that other history that gets written about in history books.” 2221 W. Main Rd., Portsmouth, 847-9871, facebook.com/valleyinnrestaurant