Michael Urie

Michael Urie appeared on Celebrity Ghost Stories in and told a story about a frightening experience with a ouija board and a ghost named “Billy”. Michael Urie is best known for acting in the TV show Ugly Betty.

I had just graduated from Drama School and I was an out-of-work actor, living in New York. I lived with a good friend of mine named Megan and we had a small apartment in Williamsburg. She had a sweet little dog named Tilly.

One night, a group of us were hanging out in the apartment and someone brought up the subject of the paranormal. We started talking about ghost stories, creepy coincidences and ouija boards.

One of the guys, Ryan, knew a lot about them. Megan got very quiet, which was very strange, but I didn’t think too much about it at first.

Then Ryan said, “We should play with the ouija board right now.”

We didn’t have one, but Ryan said he could make one. He took a cardboard box, cut it up and started drawing all the letters and the numbers. Then he wrote the Yes and the No and the Goodbye.

Megan said, “I’m not gonna do this!”

For whatever reason, it made her uncomfortable, so she took her dog, Tilly and went into her room.

We started the game and all put our hands on the planchette.

“Is anybody there,” we asked.

The thing moved to “YES”.

“Who is it?” we asked.

The thing spelled out “B-I-L-L-Y”.

“Are you dead?”

Y-E-S

“What do you want?”

The planchette slowly moved to M. I was like, “Oh my God… I’m M!”

Then it went to E and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then, it went to G. It was spelling out, “M-E-G-A-N”.

I was still skeptical, but I can’t deny that this was freaking me out.

Megan was still in her room. I called out to her, “Hey… Megan!”

She opened the door and the first thing she said was, “Is it Billy?”

We all freaked out at this point. I was in a cold sweat. No one was touching the ouija board.

We were like, “Megan… What is this? Who is this guy?”

She explained to us that Billy had been her friend. They lived near each other. When he was 13, he was killed in a drunk driving accident. Afterwards, it was really hard for her. She was devastated.

I got the feeling that Billy was not popular in school and she was only friends with him outside of school, so she felt a lot of guilt about that. This tragedy always stuck with her and ever since, on the few occasions she had used a ouija board, at college or at parties, Billy would always show up.

Megan was a mess. We should never have made this ouija board. We should never have invited Billy into this situation.

“What do you want to do?” we asked her. “Do you want us to get rid of him? Do you want us to tell him to go away?”

She said, “No… It’s too late now. I have to talk to him.”

She sat down a few feet away from the board and she asked questions while we placed our hands on the planchette.

“Are you OK, Billy?” she said.

Y-E-S

“Is there anything you want?”

N-O

“Is there anything you want to tell me?”

Y-E-S

“What?”

The planchette spelled out “H-I”.

“OK… Hi,” she said. “Now go to Goodbye, Billy.”

The planchette moved to “NO”.

She said, “Go to Goodbye, Billy!”

The planchette didn’t move. The room was silent. None of us said a word and then, very slowly, the planchette went to Goodbye.

Megan was very upset. She went back into her room and our friends left. I felt terrible, so I ripped up the home-made ouija board, threw it in the garbage and went to bed.

In the middle of the night, I heard Tilly barking and growling. This was a nice sweet dog that never made a sound. Now, all of a sudden, it was barking and growling violently at something.

Just then, I heard a knock on my door. It opened and Megan came in. She was terrified. Together we walked out into the hallway and we saw Tilly barking and growling ferociously at the garbage can, where the ouija board was, as if there was something there.

Megan grabbed the dog and said, “I have to go back into my room now.”

I was left out there with the garbage can and whatever it was that was freaking the dog out. I cautiously went over to the garbage can, collected the pieces of the ouija board, took them over to the sink and burned them.

When they were all gone, I decided to go back to bed, so I switched off the light. When I turned around, I saw a figure standing beside the garbage can. It was a young boy.

When I flicked the lights on again, he was gone.

The next day, I apologized to Megan and told her we never should have made that ouija board. She forgave me and she told me more about Billy. She was resigned to the fact that Billy was probably going to be a part of her life forever. He would never forget her and would probably never skip a chance to say, “Hi!”.