In The Twilight Saga’s Breaking Dawn: Part 1, Bella finally gives birth to her half-vampire, half-human baby daughter, inexplicably named “Renesmee.” There’s a lot of hype leading up to her birth, given that Renesmee is supposed to be extremely beautiful, more beautiful than her hot parents. In the process of attempting to create a realistically gorgeous baby, the Twilight crew created an animatronic doll to use in the film, instead of a real child.
It was so creepy they had to scrap it entirely, subbing in a digitally animated baby. Yet the legend of Renesmee grew. In the bonus features for the released movie, fans got a glimpse at how Renesmee, dubbed “Chuckesmee” by the cast and crew, turned out. The images of the freaky looking doll, which looks more like a prop designed for The Hills Have Eyes than hot vampire spawn, spread like wildfire. To this day, the Renesmee doll is almost as famous as the movie’s characters, despite not even appearing in the film. Having seen Breaking Dawn when it came out, for a second I swore that I had seen the doll in the movie, until combing through old news reports corrected that assumption. “Truly, it was one of the most grotesque things I’ve ever seen,” the movie’s director Bill Condon said of the prop. “It was a horror show! There was one shot where I call, ‘Cut!’ and suddenly she turns her head and mechanically stares right into the camera. It was incredibly disturbing.”
What happened to the cursed Renesmee doll? As much as I wish she was sitting on a sofa in Robert Pattinson’s apartment, she actually lives in Forks, Washington, the setting of the Twilight movies, which were largely filmed in Oregon. In recent years Forks has become a tourist destination for Twilight fans, hosting an annual “Forever Twilight” festival in September close to Bella’s birthday. The town also has a permanent Forever Twilight collection of Twilight memorabilia and props from the movie, including the cursed Chuckesmee prop.
“She’s very dear to me,” Lissy Andros, Executive Director for the Forks Chamber of Commerce, tells Jezebel. “But a lot of people hate her guts.” The chamber operates the Forever Twilight collection gallery year-round, featuring a mix of acquired pieces and donations like the Renesmee doll. And she’s extremely popular; the gallery actually had to get Renesmee a display cover after people kept trying to touch her.
“People were so drawn to her, it was almost like they turn into zombies and they would walk towards her and have to touch her,” Andros says. “She’s one of those pieces that you either are drawn to or are freaked out [by.] Children are very drawn to her. She has those kind of eyes that watch you.”
Renesmee’s socks are also very dirty, which bothers Andros. “I feel like the Cullens could afford clean socks for her,” she says. The doll is also very heavy due to her animatronic guts, about 35 pounds Andros estimates, and “actively melting.” Andros isn’t sure what material she’s made out of, but the Renesmee doll is reportedly “tacky to the touch.” “She’s not gonna be with us forever,” she says.
But her spirit could be! Recently TikTok user abbie23456789 posted a video about the doll, saying she was told while visiting the gallery that it was haunted. That may be true.
“One day she might be standing up straight and the next when you come in on another day, she’s in a weird position,” Andros says. “It’s like, is she moving around in there? We don’t know. But we tell everybody that the cover is on her for their protection.”
“We don’t know what’s going on inside that case,” Andros says laughing. “She could be alive. We have no idea.”