NRL star Mitchell Pearce credits ‘ghost whisperer’ for salvaging his career

A NRL star has credited an unusual saviour for salvaging his career after injury almost derailed it.

Former rugby league player Mitchell Pearce has credited a “ghost whisperer” for salvaging his NRL career after a niggling and unexplained shoulder injury almost derailed it.

The Roosters great and son of NRL legend Wayne Pearce opens up about his encounter with a ghost that was haunting his childhood home in a new book Australian Ghost Stories by author James Phelps.

“I had an injury that was giving me a lot of trouble,” Mitchell tells Phelps.

“It was this niggling pain in my shoulder, and I just couldn’t get on top of it. I was playing in pain, and nothing I did to try to treat it helped. And then one day, it just suddenly stopped hurting”.

Pearce was a 19-year-old Rookie trying to cut his teeth with the Roosters.

What Pearce would find out later is that his parents Wayne and Terri had hired a medium to cleanse their family home after she found it was home to the spirit of a little boy.

Mitchell Pearce and his parents Wayne and Terri who called in a ghost whisperer to “cleanse” their family home. Source: Instagram

Mitchell initially thought what his parents were telling him was a “gee up” until he saw his father’s facial expression and realised they were being dead serious.

“I told him that the medium had cleansed the house, and the boy was now gone,” Terri said. “He was no longer climbing all over his back. And the freaky part is that the ghost crossed over at the same time that Mitch’s injury inexplicably cleared.”

Mitchell reveals he told his Roosters teammates the next day.

“They must have thought I was off my head,” he said.

Pearce would go on to win a premiership with the Roosters, as well as play for the Newscastle Knights, the NSW State of Origin team and Super League club, the Catalans Dragons.

It was Mitchell’s youngest sister Tatum who had the first encounter with the little boy’s ghost while she was sleeping in her bedroom next to Mitchell’s.

“There’s something in my room,” she told her mother one night after fleeing the room in fright.

Mitchell with his sisters Tatum and Hannah. Picture: Supplied

Terri initially thought there was an intruder in the house and quickly woke Wayne who was asleep beside her.

“No, not someone,” Tatum told Phelps she told her parents. “Something. It’s a ghost.”

They initially dismissed their daughter’s claim, insisting she must have been dreaming – until “strange noises, things falling over” became a regular occurrence.

“I would often trip or stumble over a step,” Wayne told Phelps.

“I’d have to stop myself from falling over by grabbing the wall or another step. I’d get up and keep going. It was just something I found weird.”

Mitchell would go on to win an NRL Premiership with the Sydney Roosters.

He would go on to play for the Newcastle Knights. Picture: AAP Image/Darren Pateman

But Tatum was convinced she could see the ghost of a little boy, with Mitchell also revealing his sister’s boyfriend at the time running out of the room “all freaked out, saying he saw it too”.

It was then that Terri decided to call in a medium – or ghost whisperer.

The “cleansing” took about an hour, with the medium burning sage and beating on a little drum as she walked around the house.

She then went on to say that the presence was a young boy.

“A very active and playful spirit that had not crossed over,” Terri said.

Author James Phelps at home in Sydney for Harper Collins Publishers Australia. Picture: Brett Costello

Australian Ghost Stories book cover

The medium said the boy liked to play on the stairs – the same stair case Wayne kept tripping on.

“He seems to have a big presence in your boy’s room,” the ghost whisperer told Wayne and Terri.

“That is where he spends most of his time. He also hangs around the hallway and goes into the girl’s room next door.

‘Now don’t be frightened, because this is not unusual, but I believe the ghost has attached itself to the boy,” the medium told the couple.

“He is hanging off his back all the time. He is always on his back, jumping around. He is not an evil spirit. I would describe him as playful, and he is obviously attracted to the boy because he considers him a friend and likes his company.

‘But the good news is he has now crossed over,” she told them.

“He is gone, and he will not come back.”

That evening Mitchell came home telling his parents his shoulder was no longer bothering him.

Australian Ghost Stories by James Phelps will be published on October 2 (HarperCollins Australia $34.99)
https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460764152/australian-ghost-stories/

Originally published as NRL star Mitchell Pearce credits ‘ghost whisperer’ for salvaging his career