Melissa McCarthy’s haunted house

Melissa McCarthy used to have a ghost in her home.

The 45-year-old actress stars as paranormal researcher Abby Yates in the all-female ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot and admitted she once had her own real-life spooky experience.

Speaking to Us Weekly, she said: "I do believe in ghosts. I lived in a house in Boulder, Colorado, that every time you walked up there, everyone who walked up there said, ‘Oh, I don’t like this.’ There was just a presence."

Joking about the ghost, Melissa added: "Why does it keep spelling out ‘Melissa’ in blood?"

When the reboot was originally announced it attracted widespread criticism from fans of the 1984 original – which starred Bill Murray – due to the decision to cast Melissa, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones as the ghost fighting squad.

However, Melissa was surprised by the backlash, especially as it came before anyone had even seen the movie.

She said: "Any time someone critiques something that has not yet been made, I find it peculiar. It’s like giving a book review to an author who is like, ‘I haven’t written it yet.’

"I don’t pay much attention to it. It’s not based in the world."

Kristen, 42, added: "It’s really sad that people felt that way, in combination with actually not listening to it.

"We knew we were making the movie in the spirit of the first two, with the people who made the first two. People need to stop being so mean."