Joey King was still dealing with a low platelet count after she finished filming The Conjuring and went home. Her first hospital follow-up showed numbers as low as those recorded during production; at her next appointment, 1 day later, they’d fully normalized.
Doctors diagnosed King with ITP, a blood disorder, after initially warning that she might have leukemia. The dangerously low platelet count put her at risk of internal bleeding, so production removed her from some physical scenes. She went to the hospital twice a day during filming for vital-sign checks, before and after work.
King was about 12 when large, unexplained bruises appeared in unusual places on her body during the North Carolina shoot. The makeup team thought they were fake marks and tried alcohol and oil to remove them. King went to the hospital during the episode, and she recalled her platelet count rising a few thousand, falling, climbing 20,000 and then falling again.
A transfusion was considered, but King hasn’t said she received one. Her mother worried that King’s body might reject it, so they tried iron and plenty of steak in an effort to raise her levels naturally. “I was eating meat for real,” King said.
Now 27, King says she’s had no trace of ITP since. She still can’t explain why it began or why her platelet count returned to normal when it did.
