Inside Nicolas Cage’s unbelievably cursed house history as sinkhole hits his Malibu home

The legend that is Nicolas Cage has had some seriously bad luck when it comes to houses, and his latest property disaster might just top the lot. 

Reports emerged on Tuesday that a massive sinkhole has opened up outside the actor’s $10.5 million Malibu home, swallowing its driveway and leaving the beachfront property close to the edge. 

The hole, which reached around 25 feet deep and 60 feet wide, appeared after days of stormy weather that led to high tides and huge waves along the California coast. Crews responded to a gas leak in the affected area, prompting officials to order the evacuation of more than 30 nearby homes.

Thankfully, Cage’s actual house hasn’t fallen into the crater, despite some pretty terrifying pictures from the scene. But bizarrely, this is far from the first time one of the Spider-Noir star’s properties has made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Nicolas Cage bought and lost a ‘ghost front property’

In 2007, Cage bought the LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans for $3.45 million. Now, if you don’t know the history, there’s a horrifying reason it’s known as one of America’s most haunted houses.

Nicolas Cage Goth Fact:
In 2007 Nicolas Cage bought the famous LaLaurie mansion in New Orleans. He shortly sold it afterwards. Whether it was due to being scared or just going bankrupt, nobody knows. But you can definitely tell how much he loves New Orleans. pic.twitter.com/9sxw41qsHR

— Out With Lanterns, Good Hunter (@steinbride) January 28, 2022

It was once home to Madame Delphine LaLaurie, who brutally abused enslaved people. Her crimes were exposed after a fire in 1834, when rescuers discovered people who had been chained, starved and tortured inside the property. An outraged mob subsequently descended on the mansion, but LaLaurie had fled to Paris. 

The original house was later rebuilt, but its brutal history remained and stories of hauntings have circulated ever since. Naturally, Cage decided this was the perfect place to write a horror novel.

“I bought it in 2007, figuring it would be a good place in which to write the great American horror novel,” he told the Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine. “I didn’t get too far with the novel.”

And the book wasn’t the only thing that didn’t work out. Just two years after buying the mansion, Cage lost it to foreclosure amid the economic crash and his well-publicised financial problems.

This makes one of his jokes about the property particularly eerie in hindsight: “Other people have beachfront property; I have ghost front property.”

His $35 million mansion ended up attracting precisely zero bids

Unfortunately, the LaLaurie Mansion wasn’t the only property Cage lost around this time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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His sprawling Bel-Air mansion also ended up in foreclosure after once being listed for an eye-watering $35 million. By 2010, there were six loans totalling around $18 million against the property, and it was eventually put up for auction with bidding starting at $10.4 million.

The only problem? Not a single person bid.

The LA Times wrote at the time that it was not to everyone’s taste, with real estate agent Bret Parsons describing its interior as “fascinating and bizarre.”

“The design was ‘frat house bordello,’” he said. “There must have been 300 comic book covers elaborately framed and hanging on the walls.”

Kind of iconic, but alas, the mansion reverted to the lender before eventually selling for $10.5 million, less than a third of Cage’s one time asking price.

And those weren’t the only houses Cage lost

In fact, Nic Cage’s property problems were much bigger than just his LaLaurie and Bel-Air homes. He actually lost two New Orleans houses at the same foreclosure auction in 2009, while other properties also got caught up in his financial troubles.

At one point, his real estate empire had been huge. During a legal battle with his former business manager, it was alleged that Cage owned 15 homes around the world by 2008, alongside a private island in the Bahamas.

Cage blamed his former manager for leading him towards financial ruin, while the manager hit back by blaming the actor’s spending habits.

Either way, Cage went from owning an impressive international property portfolio to losing several homes in a remarkably short space of time.

Thankfully, he eventually managed to turn things around. Cage previously said he owed around $6 million to the IRS and other creditors, but rather than filing for bankruptcy, he threw himself into work – at one point making three or four films a year – until he’d paid everything back.

And now, more than 15 years later, his actual beachfront property has a 25-foot sinkhole sitting outside it. This time round, it has nothing to do with the market or spending and everything to do with a bad stroke of luck. 

Here’s hoping Cage’s current home makes it through without any further damage.

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Featured image credit: Chris Torres/EPA/Shutterstock/Prime Video/Public Domain