Yesterday was Valentine’s Day but Drew Barrymore and Joey King took us back to Halloween. While Joey was on Drew’s show to promote her ghostly romance, The In Between, things turned even spookier when Drew asked Joey about making The Conjuring. Joey was only 12 at the time, but that film will always stay with her. And not in a fun way. According to Joey, she developed an inexplicable blood disorder during filming in which she lost all her platelets. She was at such a risk for internal bleeding, she had to get blood drawn every day before filming. However, after returning home when the film wrapped, Joey said the platelets came back with no trace of the weird disorder ever reappearing.
Joey King felt physically haunted while making a horror movie as a child.
The In Between actress, 22, recalled on The Drew Barrymore Show how when she was filming the 2013 film The Conjuring she developed a blood disorder that required daily hospital check-ups. However, once she finished filming and went home, the condition faded away.
“Is it true that when you were on The Conjuring that you got, like, um, physical stuff happened to you?” asked host Barrymore.
Said King, “It was pretty intense. Some weird things happened on the set, along with the movie being scary. It’s true, I developed this bizarre, rare, out-of-nowhere blood disorder, and basically my body, like all the red platelets from my body were like drained. They were just gone.”
“So I had a high risk of internal bleeding and I was potentially gonna need a blood transfusion. It was so dramatic,” she continued. “So I had to, every day before work and after work, go to the hospital, get my blood taken. Then, all of a sudden I got home and I’ve never had a problem with my blood since.”
Barrymore shouted to the audience, “Don’t you think that’s crazy? I think it’s crazy!”
King added that when she thinks about that story, “I just shudder a little bit.”
The thing that further freaks me out about Joey’s story is that The Conjuring is based on events from Ed and Lorraine Warren’s life. The Warren’s were paranormal investigators who have some astonishing stories of otherworldly occurrences. I would love to hear some of the other things that happened on that set. Joey told Howard Stern a few years ago, “That movie messed me up for my whole life,” and filming it was why she was so scared of it. It’s one thing to commit to these creepy films and what comes with them as an adult, but could you imagine going through that at 12?
I guess it didn’t affect Joey enough to not make a movie about dating a ghost, though. The In Between is another film about a person who loses their lover and then reconnects with them from the beyond. I can’t tell if this is shades of Ghost or not. I always want to like My Boyfriend the Wraith films, but outside of Ghost, they rarely work for me.
Photo credit: Avalon Red and InStar Images
It sounds like she had a mild bout of acute ITP. It is a rare autoimmune disease. (I was hospitalized for a while with it as a young child.) Often resolves with steroids. It’s manageable compared to most autoimmune diseases.
Hematologist here.
There’s no such thing as “red platelets”, just regular platelets. Like a commenter above pointed out, it sounds like she had ITP (immune thrombocytopenia). This can be treated with steroids
but only if your platelets are so low that you are at a high risk of bleeding (usually < 30,000 platelets).
It can be secondary to viral infections, and in children it's not uncommon for ITP to resolve on its own without treatment.
Thanks for the expert info, @delight175. I was very young when I had it and didn’t know about the treatment threshold. I do remember bleeding a lot so it makes sense I was given steroids.
I just want to say I love the commenters here. You guys are so smart! The comments section is always full of interesting information and sharp takes.
Well, you just took all the fun out of it being caused by the movie 😛 I kid.
“The Warren’s were paranormal investigators who have some astonishing stories of otherworldly occurrences.”
The Warrens were notorious frauds and grifters.
Truly Madly Deeply with Alan Rickman is the best ghost lover movie of all time.