Everyone has their weird phobias. Me, I hate clowns and people wearing costumes or masks that cover their faces (which is weird, considering how much I love Disney World). But compared to these 10 celebrity phobias, my fears are pretty normal.
1. Billy Bob Thornton hates antiques so much he refuses to stay in a room with furniture from before 1950. This might be a rare phobia, but he’s not alone – more than 250,000 people in the U.S. alone apparently suffer from this fear of antiques. “I’ve had friends tell me that maybe I was beaten to death with an antique chair in a former life,” Thornton has mused. Hmm.
2. Of all of the things that could traumatize Alfred Hitchcock – you know, showers, birds, mama’s boys –one of the things he hated most were eggs, specifically runny ones. You know what’s weird? My mom shares Hitchcock’s birthday (not birth year, mind you) and she also loathes eggs. Even cracking one into a cake mix can make her gag, and don’t even ask her to make you over easy eggs.
3. Christina Ricci cannot stand to be around house plants, which would be known as a form of botanophobia. She finds them dirty and shudders at the idea of watering one. “If I have to touch one, after already being repulsed by the fact that there is a plant indoors, then it just freaks me out.” I guess if a guy sends her flowers after a date, there won’t be a second one. Or maybe flowers are different? Do we have any botanophobics out there that can clarify?
4. Tyra Banks won’t be swimming with Flipper’s cousin at Sea World anytime soon – she says she’s been scared of the intelligent swimmers since she was about eight years old. “I have dreams that I am in a pool and there are dolphins bumping me and I’m frightened,” she has said.
If you’re really interested, here’s a video of Tyra bravely facing her nemesis for her talk show.
5. Megan Fox hates paper. I imagine this must make it very hard to read scripts, but what do I know? Technically, she clarifies that this isn’t a phobia –it’s more like people who get the chills when they hear fingernails on a chalkboard. She says that sometimes she even has to have a cup of water nearby so she can thoroughly wet her finger before turning a page if she’s doing a lot of reading at once. So, War and Peace is probably out?
6. Do you guys remember Frankie from The Real World: San Diego? If you do, you probably remember her for her battle with cystic fibrosis (which she sadly lost in 2007) and not for her strange phobia: big boats. Really. The cameras were rolling on the roommates just standing around chatting when Frankie bolted for the bathroom, white as a ghost and thisclose to throwing up. Why? Because someone said “cruise ship.”
7. Matthew McConaughey is scared of revolving doors. And maybe also personal hygiene, because he says he hasn’t worn deodorant in 20 years. He claims he feels anxious about even getting near revolving doors, and he’s also scared of tunnels. While actually being in a tunnel doesn’t bother him, the point where you have to go underground to enter the tunnel does.
8. Nicole Kidman is what is known as a lepidopterophobe – a person who is terrified of butterflies. “It’s so bizarre,” she told In Stylemagazine, “I’m not scared of snakes or spiders.” She said she once tried to overcome her fear of the colorful little guys by making herself go through the butterfly exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, but just couldn’t make it through. As a little girl, she couldn’t even go in her yard when she got home from school if there was a butterfly sitting on the gate.
9. Childhood sure can mess a person up. “My grandmother used to save it [used gum] in little rows in the cabinet,” Oprah once said. “I’d be scared to touch it because it was so gross, so I have a thing about gum. One guest in my home sat at the dinner table, took out some gum from her mouth and put it on her plate — after she left, I threw the plate out.”
10. What does Madonna have in common with a dog? I’m sure there are lots of hilarious answers to that, actually, but the answer I have in mind is that they’re both afraid of thunder.
I think a fear of clowns is somewhat common, so I didn’t include Johnny Depp’s phobia, but I have to say that his thoughts on why he hates them sum up my own opinions pretty nicely: “There’s something about the painted face and the fake smile. There seems to be a darkness lurking under the surface, a potential for real evil”.
