Celebrity Phobias, From Unusual to Totally Relatable

Billy Bob Thornton: Antique Furniture

In his memoir, The Billy Bob Tapes: A Cave Full of Ghosts, Billy Bob Thornton admits that he's afraid of a few things — like antiques and silver. When The New York Times interviewed him about those fears in 2012, he said, "My phobias have been greatly exaggerated. 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." He added, "That’s the stuff I can’t be around. It was too big to be functional. It creeps me out."

Oprah Winfrey: Chewing Gum

Some people suffer from misophonia, which makes them feel enraged when they hear disruptive sounds, like chewing, which makes being around gum pretty difficult. Then there are people like Oprah Winfrey, who are afraid of gum itself.

In the December 2005 issue of O magazine, Winfrey interviewed Jamie Foxx and talked about her strange phobia. "Do you know I have a whole thing about gum?" she asked, then continued, "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." Yikes.

Orlando Bloom: Pigs

According to E! News, when a pig got loose on the Kingdom of Heaven set in the early aughts, Orlando Bloom "ran like crazy" to get away from it. We're not sure how fast pigs run, but he made sure this one wasn't going to overtake him.

Matthew McConaughey: Revolving Doors

If you've ever worried that you might get stuck in a revolving door, you aren't alone. According to Us Weekly, Matthew McConaughey is so afraid of revolving doors that it's tough just to be in a room with one. “I get anxious just being near them,” he said.

Emily Blunt: Garden Gnomes

Emily Blunt may have voiced a garden gnome in not one but two children's movies based on classic literature, but she hasn't always been fond of the ceramic decor. According to Us Weekly, she said in a 2011 interview, “My friend had garden gnomes, and I remember being kind of scared of them when I was very young. I was always scared or skeeved out by anything that resembled people when I was a kid, like puppets and things like that.”

Christina Ricci: Houseplants

Millennials may be obsessed with houseplants, but Christina Ricci wants nothing to do with them. She told Esquire in 2003, “They are dirty. 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.”

Adele: Seagulls

Many people are afraid of birds, but superstar Adele is afraid of one specific bird: seagulls. According to Refinery29, her fear comes from a childhood attack. “I was walking down the promenade in Tenby, eating a 99 [aka a Cadbury ice cream cone], when this huge fucking seagull came down and swiped it off me," Adele said. "I’ve still got a scar from its claw on my shoulder. I thought it was going to take me away with it.” 

Britney Spears: Reptiles

Britney Spears has had a lot of iconic moments in her career, but one of the most memorable is definitely when she performed with a 7-foot albino python draped across her shoulders at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards. Inquisitr reports that Spears was petrified of the snake according to animal trainer Mike Hano, but he said, “She seemed like she was a really hard worker and very determined. She was scared of snakes, and this thing was right around her neck, and she had to dance with it on live television in front of millions of people. …She was afraid of the snake, but she forced herself to handle it, and she did a really great job.”

In a July 16 post on her Instagram showing one of her two sons in a pet store with a snake curled around his wrist, Spears revealed that she is still afraid of them. "I leave the snake handling to the boys these days… I was ready to run," she wrote along with a laughing-and-crying emoji.

Tyra Banks: Dolphins

If you were a dolphin girl growing up, then you wouldn't have gotten along with Tyra Banks. Refinery29 reports that Banks had nightmares about dolphins and other sea-dwelling mammals as a kid, which left her with a lifelong phobia. “I've gotten a little past it, but there is something that still lives inside me," she said.

The outlet notes that she tried to get over her fear on an episode of her talk show, but the experience went really poorly.

Nicole Kidman: Butterflies

Creepy-crawlies come in all forms, and Nicole Kidman isn't afraid of most of them. However, according to Glamour, she is afraid of butterflies. “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," she said. "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… 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.”

Refinery29 also reported on Kidman's phobia, noting that she called them "eerie" in an interview with InStyle. 

Kendall Jenner: Holes

The fear of repeating patterns of holes, called trypophobia, apparently affects more of us than we realize. According to Refinery29, Kendall Jenner wrote on her website about her fear of small holes, saying, “Things that could set me off are pancakes, honeycomb, or lotus heads (the worst!). It sounds ridiculous, but so many people actually have it!” 

Keanu Reeves: Darkness

This one's a little incoherent. In an interview with Hello magazine, Keanu Reeves admitted to being afraid of the dark — but maybe not in the "jump back into bed so the bogeyman doesn't grab your ankles" kind of way. "I am afraid of the dark," he said. "But I mean that in a real philosophical way."

What exactly does that mean? We may never know.

Uma Thurman: Small Spaces

Claustrophobia is a fear of small, tight spaces, something Uma Thurman has had to face on the set of some of her films. In a 2004 interview with The Daily Mail about Kill Bill, she said, "Well, I am claustrophobic but you don't really have to be claustrophobic to feel being buried alive. The sound effects ended up being so effective. I mean, the raw sound … and the sound of dirt hitting the wooden lid. It was just another happy day at the office really!"

Jennifer Aniston: Flying

Jennifer Aniston has publicly discussed her fear of flying several times. She told The London Free Press in 2014 that while on the press tour for Horrible Bosses 2, she had a unique experience on a British Airways flight that led her to become an ambassador for the airline.

When her fear overcame her, Aniston said, she turned on a program meant to assuage passengers with aviophobia. "By the end of it… he says, ‘Our flight staff is totally prepared for heart attacks, panic attacks, births…’," she said, adding, "And now I’m actually crying… I get up and I’m in the galley with everybody going like, ‘Hi, so I have a real fear of flying…’ and they do give you all this TLC; they check in on you."

Talk about a positive ending to a frightening situation!

Helen Mirren: Talking on the Phone

According to the World Entertainment News Network, Dame Helen Mirren really doesn't like talking on the phone, to the point of not even returning messages. "I never, ever return calls," she said. "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."