The Real-Life Paranormal Origins of Ghosted! By Roz Hernandez

Roz Hernandez is famous for her work as a comedian and drag queen (performing under the name Roz Drezfalez), but her current role is as a seeker of the strange and unusual on the paranormal podcast Ghosted! By Roz Hernandez, part of Starburns Audio. Each episode features Hernandez interviewing celebrities, paranormal notables, and even regular folks who join her to share creepy stories, in addition to shooting the breeze about life, the universe, and everything. 

With guests including Patton Oswalt, Margaret Cho, Amy Bruni, and even your truly, Ghosted! maintains a balance, which fits just perfectly for her. 

After all, before she became known as Roz Drezfalez, she grew up in a potentially haunted house, as she revealed in an episode of Den of Geek’s paranormal podcast show Talking Strange (available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube).

“I grew up in a house I believed to be haunted, and grew up with a belief that that kind of thing is possible,” she says. “I believe it was haunted by my grandmother, and one night [when I was 10] I saw her in my bedroom, and she looked real ghosty, and she vanished.”

She continues, “I don’t care if you’re the sweetest, nicest person. If you are see through and disappear, that’s scary to me, so I was very terrified.”

Hernandez says she never saw her again, but when she was preteen or teenager, she would fight a lot with her parents, and things would fly from the wall, or a candle would flip off a countertop.

“I always assumed it was my grandmother being like, ‘Hey, you’re being bad,’ but I’m starting to think I may be Carrie … maybe, I was the center of my own poltergeist.”

Rather than being a taboo subject in her Catholic home in Michigan, Hernandez said her parents would talk about the topic, and her father had multiple experiences of his own. Her parents were supportive of her interests, and even took her to the local haunted cemetery to perform a version of a ghost hunt.

“They always entertained the idea it was real.”

As she got older, Hernandez said she kept having “random” paranormal experiences, and would delve into books on the topic as well as watch her favorite show: Celebrity Ghost Stories.

“I love the reenactments, and the wigs! It’s just so good” she says of the show that debuted on The Biography Channel in 2009, before moving to Lifetime, and then resurrected in 2020 by A&E.

That love eventually led to the creation of Ghosted! since Hernandez lives and works in LA.

“As a performer and comedian and actor, I happen to know a lot of public figures that are really great on a podcast, and a lot of them have ghost stories — which I know because every time I’m around people I say, ‘Tell me a ghost story!’”

And whether it’s serendipity, or life imitating art, or simply as a result of her living in the heart of Hollywood, Roz has ended up having a lot of Celebrity Ghost Stories guests on her show, including her “absolute idol” Cassandra Peterson, aka Elvira.

For more from Roz Hernandez, don’t miss Ghosted! which drops new episodes every Thursday. And check out Roz, as she shares more about her fascination with Celebrity Ghost Stories (and Elvira), on the latest Talking Strange on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.