Everyone is afraid of something, and sometimes those fears seem small and manageable. Maybe you’re afraid of bugs, but not enough to prevent you from spending time outside or going on a picnic. You might have a fear of flying on an airplane, but it’s not so bad that you can’t get yourself on one when you really need to. It’s when a fear starts to impact your life in an irrational way that it becomes more than just something you’re scared of and can be called an actual phobia.
A phobia is actually defined as “a type of anxiety disorder that causes an individual to experience extreme, irrational fear about a situation, living creature, place, or object.” Having a phobia means you aren’t able to ignore the fear you have and just go about your life. People with phobias will often go very out of their way to avoid the thing they’re terrified of, and they’ll let it affect their decisions, their course of action, and their emotions.
Phobias can also be kind of strange, and a lot of people will be absolutely terrified by something that doesn’t actually pose any sort of real threat to them. This doesn’t only affect us “everyday” people — celebrities have phobias, too, and some of them are pretty bizarre. But hearing about celebrities with phobias may make those fears a little more relatable. Here are a whole bunch:
1. Kendall Jenner has a fear of tiny holes.
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In a post on her app, Kendall Jenner once admitted to having trypophobia. She explained, “Anyone who knows me knows that I have really bad trypophobia. Trypophobics are afraid of tiny little holes that are in weird patterns. Things that could set me off are pancakes, honeycomb or lotus heads (the worst!). It sounds ridiculous but so many people actually have it! I can’t even look at little holes — it gives me the worst anxiety. Who knows what’s in there???”
2. Kristen Bell is scared of pruney fingertips.
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Kristen Bell’s husband, Dax Shephard, once shared this photo of his wife on Instagram with the caption, “My bride wears gloves in the pool because she hates the feeling of pruney finger tips on skin. #Hollyweird #iloveher.”
Shephard talked about her fear even more when he was Jimmy Kimmel Live, saying, “What I had been told thus far is she just doesn’t like going in the pool. She’ll take the kids out there but she just sits in a lawn chair or whatever. But then there was a heat wave in L.A., so Bell got in the pool — wearing gloves.” Shephard added, “She appeared with those gloves, seemingly intended for pool wear. When her fingertips are pruney, she doesn’t want to touch other people’s skin.”
3. Taylor Swift is terrified of sea urchins.
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During an appearance on The Ellen Show, Taylor Swift talked about her crippling fear of sea urchins. She said, “They’re like a grenade. They’re sitting there, waiting to completely injure you to the point where… okay, so you can’t see a sea urchin if you’re in the Caribbean. You’re like, ‘This water is so beautiful, it’s amazing.’ And you’re walking, it’s clear water, you can’t see a sea urchin’s right there, and then you step on one, and it has barbs and it goes into whatever it touches. And then you have to go to the emergency room and it has to be surgically removed. You could lose your foot, you could lose your hand, you could lose your hand trying to get it off your foot. I don’t like sea urchins.”
4. Megan Fox is really afraid of dry paper.
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Swift’s explanation for her fear of sea urchins does kind of make sense, but Megan Fox’s fear of dry paper seems a bit more, well, bizarre. When speaking to Jimmy Kimmel, she once said that not only is she very afraid of the dark (it’s a fear she’s had since she was a kid), but she’s also afraid of dry paper. In fact, she even keeps a glass of water next to her while she’s reading! She said, “I don’t like dry paper. Scripts, newspapers or anything that’s not laminated, I have to keep licking my fingers. If I’m reading I have a cup of water to dip my fingers in. I’m really neurotic.”
5. Adele is scared of seagulls.
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It’s actually no surprise that Adele has a fear of seagulls — she’s had a bad history with them. In one interview with Metro, she shared that she was attacked by a seagull when she was younger. She said, “I was walking down the promenade in Tenby, eating a 99, when this huge f—ing seagull came down and swiped it off me. I’ve still got a scar from its claw on my shoulder. I thought it was going to take me away with it.” We’d probably be scared of them too!
6. Tyra Banks is afraid of dolphins.
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Who could be afraid of dolphins?! Apparently, Tyra Banks. The supermodel sees them as pretty sinister animals. On an episode of her talk show, she once said, “You think a dolphin is sweet and friendly — to me, they’re not. I feel anxiety and I feel panic whenever I’m confronting or even thinking about or talking about a dolphin. It’s happening right now.”
7. Kylie Jenner is terrified of butterflies.
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Butterflies are beautiful, charming, and have the coolest lives… but not to Kylie Jenner. In an episode of Life With Kylie, she once said, “I’m terrified — terrified — of butterflies. All butterflies.” She added, “This is how I think of them: cut the wings off, and if you just look at their bodies, they’re not that pretty. It’s literally a bug.” That actually kind of makes sense… except that butterflies became a big thing for Kylie when she was pregnant with Stormi.
8. Oprah Winfrey has a serious fear of chewing gum.
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Oprah Winfrey is apparently so afraid of chewing gum that she won’t allow it anywhere near her. In an interview with Jamie Foxx, she once said, “Do you know I have a whole thing about gum? In Mississippi, my grandmother used to chew gum, then stick it in the cabinet. There were rows and rows of Juicy Fruit and Spearmint. I was afraid of it. Even now I don’t allow gum in the building where I work. So when I saw you chewing on Oscar night, I freaked out. I said to myself, ‘I’m going to have to say something to Jamie — and if I have to, I’ll take the gum.'” That’s pretty intense!
9. Rita Ora has a fear of toilets.
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It can’t be easy to have a fear of something you’re forced to use every single day, multiple times a day. That’s what life is like for Rita Ora, who has said she’s pretty afraid of toilets. In an interview, Ora explained the fear, saying, “I always feel that when I go to the toilet that something’s going to come out of the bottom. I have this thing where I think this tunnel must start from somewhere and sometimes I think, ‘What if something comes out of the toilet?’ That’s been one of my fears. I always make sure I put the light on when I go.” At least she’s figured out how to get around it, or that would be… messy.
10. Rihanna is terrified of fish of all kinds.
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Rihanna might be from an island, but that doesn’t mean she’s a fan of everything that comes out of the ocean. In an interview with Blender, she once said, “I’m super scared of sea creatures. Even tiny fish. One time I was in the water — and the water in Barbados is so clear you can see your feet — I saw all these tiny fish swimming around my feet, and I had a panic attack. I just froze. This man had to lift me out of the water.” Pretty sure a lot of people can relate to that one.
11. Liam Payne is scared of spoons.
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Liam Payne has never been shy about his fear of spoons, which yes, sounds quite odd. But does that mean he won’t use one at all? Payne told MTV, “See I’m not so much scared of spoons, I’ll hold one. But I don’t like eating with them, if they’re not my spoons, if that makes sense.” He went on to explain that when he was a kid in school, he got in trouble a lot, and one of his punishments was cleaning dirty silverware… like spoons. It stuck with him.
12. Billy Bob Thornton is very afraid of antique furniture.
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So, here’s a new one: Billy Bob Thornton has a big fear of antique furniture. Thornton has opened up about this fear multiple times. He once told The New York Times, “I don’t mind a chair. I can go as far back as you want with Asia or Mexico. It’s that French/English/Scottish old mildewy stuff. Old dusty heavy drapes and big tables with lions’ heads carved in it. Stuff that kings were around. That’s the stuff I can’t be around. It was too big to be functional. It creeps me out.”
13. Scarlett Johansson has a big fear of birds.
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Scarlett Johansson’s fear actually isn’t that odd — a lot of people are afraid of birds. In an interview, she once said, “I’m only scared of birds. Something about wings and beaks and the flapping. I’m terrified of them. That still hasn’t gone away. My uncle is terrified of birds as well, so it runs in the family.” In fact, she’s always been worried about being asked to work with birds during a film.
14. Orlando Bloom is terrified of pigs.
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Although he hasn’t talked about it before, Orlando Bloom is actually really afraid of pigs. According to Star Crush, he doesn’t like the smell or the way they can take over farms. Bloom supposedly ran away from a set when a pig got loose one time.
15. Nicole Kidman is also scared of butterflies.
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Apparently, a butterfly fear must not be too unique. Nicole Kidman is also afraid of them. In an interview, she said she’s had the fear since she was a kid. She explained, “Sometimes when I would come home from school the biggest butterfly or moth you’d ever seen would be just sitting on our front gate. I would climb over the fence, crawl around to the side of the house — anything to avoid having to go through the front gate. I have tried to get over it (the phobia), I walked into the big butterfly cage at the American Museum of Natural History and had the butterflies on me, but that didn’t work. I jump out of planes, I could be covered in cockroaches, I do all sorts of things, but I just don’t like the feel of butterflies’ bodies.”
16. Christina Ricci is afraid of house plants.
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Apparently, Christina Ricci doesn’t like to be anywhere near house plants. In one interview, she explained, “They are dirty! If I have to touch one, then it freaks me out. Honestly, I can’t go near them.” Like, all house plants?! Even succulents??
17. Katie Holmes is really scared of raccoons.
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During an appearance on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, Katie Holmes opened up about her lifelong fear of raccoons. She explained that she’s afraid of them because they don’t seem to be afraid of humans, saying, “I was recently sitting outside and this raccoon comes right up, like right there, and I’m expecting it to be more afraid of me and I’m staring at it and it’s staring right back like he’s gonna kick my butt and I didn’t know what to do so I just stood up and barked at it and he just ran away.” That’s one way to get them to be afraid!
18. Pamela Anderson is terrified of mirrors.
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According to E! News, Pamela Anderson isn’t a fan of looking at herself. She said, “I have this phobia — I don’t like mirrors. And I don’t watch myself on television. If anything comes on, I make them shut it off or I leave the room.” That’s definitely an interesting one, especially for someone like Anderson.
19. Ellen Page is really scared of tennis balls.
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Tennis balls might seem harmless to you, but not to Ellen Page. During an interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers, she said that one of the things she has to look at to portray fear while filming is tennis balls — not on purpose, it just happened to be that way on set, but like she said, “It works really well.” She said she’s always had the fear, adding, “Tennis comes on, I have to get out of the room.”
20. Kyra Sedgwick is very freaked out by talking food.
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During an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Kevin Bacon opened up about his wife Kyra Sedgwick’s biggest fear: talking food. He said that Sedgwick is so afraid of it that she’ll leave the room if commercials featuring talking food come on. Once, he turned down a spot in an M&M’s commercial because of the fear. That’s love.
21. Helen Mirren has a fear of talking on the phone.
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Well, here’s a fear we can probably all relate to. Helen Mirren hates talking on the phone. She once said, “I never, ever return calls. I’m definitely very frightened of the phone. It makes me so nervous. I always avoid picking it up if I can. To me, the invention of the answering machine was amazing. But then, I never return the calls anyway, so it wasn’t much use.”
22. Khloé Kardashian is super scared of belly buttons.
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In a post on her app, Khloé Kardashian once revealed that she’s afraid of belly buttons, which is pretty random. She wrote, “I hate belly buttons. You can’t touch mine and I don’t want to touch yours. When I’m in the shower, I wear hand mitts and I scream every time I wash my belly button.” Who would ever guess?
23. Kylie Minogue is scared of hangers.
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Speaking of being afraid of something you have to deal with all the time, Kylie Minogue is scared of clothes hangers. She once said, “I have a hanger phobia — I don’t like the way they sound when you put them in the wardrobe.” She won’t even hang her clothes up, saying she lays them out in a room in her house.
24. DJ Khalid once had a fear of flying.
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In an Instagram post, DJ Khaldi revealed he had once had a fear of flying, saying, “I haven’t flown in 10 years. In 10 years! That’s the only thing I had was fear of flying. Asahd made me overcome my fear of flying.” That’s basically the sweetest thing ever.
25. Diddy has a specific fear of toes.
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Diddy is afraid of toes… but only one thing about them. Speaking to Jay Leno, he once said, “I have this foot thing… I really fear a long second toe.” That’s extremely specific, but also kind of relatable?
26. Nicki Minaj is supposedly terrified of escalators.
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She hasn’t discussed it publicly, but according to gossip out there, Nicki Minaj is terrified of escalators. She once caused a scene at the National Basketball Players Association Gala in Los Angeles when photographers wanted her to get on an escalator. Hey, if she doesn’t want to get on one, don’t force her!
27. Madonna absolutely hates thunderstorms.
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Apparently, Madonna has a big fear of thunderstorms — although it’s not something she’s talked about publicly. But there are a lot of reports out there about her being super afraid of them, and honestly, that’s understandable. Thunder and lightening can be terrifying.
28. Kristen Stewart is very scared of horses.
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Kristen Stewart had some trouble filming Snow White and the Huntsman because of her fear of horses. Stewart has said, “I got to jump off cliffs and ride horses, and that terrifies me. I was really, really not happy about having to do all that [horseback riding]. I don’t like that – I hate that.” She explained that she fell off a horse as a child and got seriously hurt. So yeah, that phobia definitely makes sense.
29. Johnny Depp is petrified of clowns.
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A fear of clowns is really nothing new, so it’s not surprising that Johnny Depp has one. He once said, “There always seemed to be a darkness lurking just under the surface, a potential for real evil. I guess I am afraid of them because it’s impossible — thanks to their painted-on smiles — to distinguish if they are happy or if they’re about to bite your face off.” That is very true!