No matter how famous these people might’ve been, it didn’t stop them from being scared of all sorts of odd things.
A room he’d rather avoid
Actor Billy Bob Thornton might be able to handle dark movie roles and packed film sets, but there’s one thing that scares him. No, it isn’t anything Hollywood-related. It’s simply antique furniture.
The Sling Blade star says he’s terrified of old European pieces because they make him very uncomfortable. Eating around them can be difficult for him. He’s said French, English, and Scottish antiques in particular worried him, although old Asian furniture doesn’t.Â
Trouble beneath the surface
Most people want to swim with dolphins on vacation. Not Tyra Banks, though. She’d rather stay on the boat, as the supermodel and former America’s Next Top Model host is scared of dolphins. It’s a fear that goes back to her childhood.Â
She said she had a nightmare involving the animals when she was young, and the fear stuck with her ever since. It’s kind of strange, honestly. Dolphins have one of the friendliest reputations in nature, but for Banks, they’re genuinely threatening.
Getting through the entrance
Revolving doors sure can be annoying. Actress Anya Taylor-Joy sees them as a lot more than that. The star of The Queen’s Gambit and Furiosa said they’re one of her biggest fears because she’s afraid that she won’t move quickly enough through them.
Her fear is that she’ll somehow get caught or cut in half. Small spaces don’t seem to bother her, though, it’s only the spinning part of the revolving doors that she’s scared of. Everything’s much easier with a regular door.
Not just any spoon
The late One Direction singer Liam Payne had a phobia of spoons. But not any spoon, just the spoons that belonged to other people. He could hold his own spoons perfectly well. The fear began in school, where punishment sometimes involved washing piles of dirty cutlery.
That eventually led to him having a lasting dislike of shared spoons. It makes sense, really, because if you’d washed enough mystery spoons as a kid, you probably would start looking at the silverware drawer differently too.
The sound inside the closet
Kylie Minogue’s wardrobe has more incredible outfits than most people will ever own. That only makes her phobia even stranger. The singer has said she dislikes coat hangers, specifically the scraping and clattering sound that they make inside a closet.
She once said that she preferred to keep her clothes laid out, rather than hanging them normally, so she wouldn’t have to deal with that sound. She’s someone who’s spent decades surrounded by costumes and designer clothing. So, that’s got to be an inconvenient setup.
Something left on the cabinet
A lot of people hate the sound of someone smacking their gum. Oprah Winfrey hates the whole idea of chewing gum. She said her fear started because of her grandmother, as she used to save pieces of chewed gum by sticking them onto furniture and cabinets.Â
Young Oprah used to touch them accidentally sometimes. That was enough to start her hatred of it. Older Oprah said she became so uncomfortable around gum that she actually banned it from her offices. It’s that serious, apparently.
When dinner starts moving
Talking candy seems like something completely harmless. It is, for most people, but not for Kyra Sedgwick. The Emmy-winning star of The Closer has openly talked about how strongly she dislikes food that’s been given human traits in cartoons. Dancing popcorn is too much, and so are animated cookies.Â
It’s not just a simple fear, either, as Sedgwick says the sight of talking food is enough to make her gag. It even became an issue in her marriage, as her husband Kevin Bacon was given a role involving a singing and dancing M&M. Sedgwick said she wanted no part of that idea.
Scripts require a cup of water
You’d think that an actor like Megan Fox would have no problem with scripts. You’d be right, as long as the script isn’t written on a piece of dry paper. She hates touching it. Her hatred of dry paper is so bad that she gets bothered by newspapers and unlaminated pages.
Just turning pages is so unpleasant for her that she compared it to fingernails on a chalkboard. But Fox does have a solution. She said she sometimes keeps water nearby and wets her fingertips before touching the paper. She also has no issue with laminated pages.
Breakfast was complicated
The director of Psycho and Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock, had one of the weirdest phobias around. It wasn’t anything that most people would be scared by. No, he was scared of eggs, and he openly spoke about how frightened he was by them.
Watching an egg break open was particularly terrifying because the sight of the yolk made him feel uncomfortable. He allegedly said he’d never tasted an egg. He was that repulsed by them.
Fewer buttons, please
Steve Jobs famously liked things clean and simple. Maybe that’s why he hated buttons. The Apple co-founder had something known as koumpounophobia, or a strong hatred of physical buttons. He wore black turtlenecks that had no shirt buttons on them for that reason.
His hatred of buttons actually extended to his view of technology, too. One Apple engineer said Jobs got really excited about an early mouse design without a visible button. It seems that touchscreen phones were always going to appeal to him.
Those eyes seem a little too real
It’s strange to think a confident actor like Channing Tatum could ever be terrified of anything. He’s played soldiers, fighters, police officers, and a stripper, after all. But what really gets to him are porcelain dolls, apparently.
He said he’s genuinely frightened of them and has blamed part of the fear on seeing a creepy porcelain doll on television as a child. He said their eyes are the worst part. They’re normally so realistic that he said he imagines them watching him walk by.
One creature ruins the water
Singer Taylor Swift sure has an odd phobia. She hates sea urchins. During an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, she said she worries about stepping on one and getting the spines stuck in her foot. That’s why she tries to avoid them altogether.
Swift also said that she dislikes how hard it can be to spot the urchins underwater. She might’ve played stadiums packed with tens of thousands of people, but it seems that a spiky little sea creature is too much for her to bear.
A flower came with rules
Poinsettias are a real problem for actor Geena Davis. Not because of the way they look, but because she’s afraid of touching them, as she thinks they’ll kill her. The Thelma & Louise and A League of Their Own star said she has quite a few fears and superstitions.
Some of her other fears include broken mirrors and cracks in the sidewalk. But it seems that touching a poinsettia is one of the greatest fears of all for her, meaning that the Christmas period must be a real challenge.
Swimming comes with gloves
Kristen Bell’s fear is so bad that she actually has to wear gloves sometimes. The actor is afraid of wet, wrinkled fingertips touching her skin, to the point where it makes her gag. Swimming is fine, but wrinkled fingers, no way.
The Frozen actor said she ran into a problem once she had children because she’d have to touch them with pool fingers when they were in a pool. A friend came to her rescue by giving her swimming gloves.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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