Celebrities might seem confident in the public eye, but when it comes to being afraid, they’re just like Us!
Stars such as Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton and Uma Thurman suffer from the fear of enclosed spaces, one of the most common phobias. Jennifer Aniston, Sandra Bullock and Whoopi Goldberg also share another popular fear — flying.
Other celebrities, meanwhile, have more unusual phobias. Kylie Jenner revealed on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in October 2019 that she avoids dusty cups.
“The strangest thing I’m afraid of is, like, dust in a cup,” Jenner said. “I don’t know why. It’s like one of my pet peeves is when there’s a lot of dust in a cup and it’s getting in my system.”
Scroll down to see more celebrity phobias:
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Olivia Rodrigo
During a September 2023 interview with Rolling Stone, the Guts musician dished about her biggest fear: birds.
“Birds are so foreign to us — there’s not one body part that looks like ours,” she told the outlet. “Everyone’s all afraid about aliens and s—t. They’re like, ‘What are the aliens going to look like?’ I’m like, ‘We have birds on our planet, and we’re not scared of them. We’re fine!’”
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Tyra Banks
The Dancing With the Stars host has been afraid of dolphins since elementary school. “I had these reoccurring dreams where I’d be in a swimming pool and dolphins would be surrounding me, and not even attacking me, they would just be bumping me with their nose," Banks said during a 2006 episode of The Tyra Banks Show. "I couldn’t wake up, and it was the weirdest, scariest nightmare for me."
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Khloe Kardashian
The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star revealed her belly button fear via her app in 2016.
“I hate belly buttons,” Kardashian said. “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, LOL!”
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Liam Payne
The former One Direction member isn't a fan of dirty spoons. “It is a bit weird. When I was a kid I was a bit naughty at school and when you were naughty, they made you do the washing up,” he told Capital FM in 2015. "I had to wash all these nasty spoons and then it’s just stuck with me after. I don’t know what people are doing with their spoons. I don’t want to know."
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Johnny Depp
The Edward Scissorhands star thinks clowns have a sinister nature. “I have this fear of clowns," Depp said. "So, I think that if I surround myself with them it will ward off all evil. There’s something about the painted face, the fake smile. There always seemed to be a darkness lurking just under the surface, a potential for real evil.”
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Matthew McConaughey
The Dazed and Confused star avoids revolving doors or tunnels because they throw off his sense of direction. "I don't like revolving doors, and I really don't like that blind spot when you're driving and go into a tunnel," he said, according to The Frisky. "You know that spot where you can't see for about 10 feet. You can't see what's in front of you."
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Megan Fox
The Transformers star admitted she's afraid of dry paper and the dark during an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2009. "Some people don't like nails across a chalkboard because it gives them goosebumps," 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."
Fox added that she's been afraid of the dark "all my life." She explained, "I leave the lights on all the time and if the light is off, I have to run across the room to get to the switch. I can't walk through a dark room. I'm afraid of what I can't see."
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Kylie Jenner and Nicole Kidman
The Kylie Cosmetics founder revealed her fear of butterflies whens he visited a butterfly exhibit during a 2017 episode of Life of Kylie. "It's kind of ironic because I'm terrified … terrified of butterflies," she said at the time. "This is how I think of them: cut the wings off and if you just look at their bodies, it's not that pretty."
As for Kidman, the Big Little Lies star is also deathly afraid of butterflies' bodies. “I have tried to get over it," she told ContactMusic in 2005. "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.”
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Hugh Jackman
The X-Men star doesn't like dolls featured in horror movies, especially the 1988 film Child's Play. "When dolls come to life in films, that just freaks me out. I just can't stand that," he told Star Magazine in 2009. "Chucky? Forget that. I remember when I was a little kid, and that little doll in the rocking chair going, 'Take the girl right up the hill and kiss the girl goodbye.' I'm like, 'Forget that!' That freaks me out," he said.
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Jennifer Aniston
The Friends alum opened up in 2019 about facing her fear of flying when her plane had to make an emergency landing while she was en route to Mexico with Courteney Cox and Jimmy Kimmel's wife, Molly McNeary.
"We heard an explosion, which sounded like a pothole if it was a car big enough to go over the Grand Canyon. It was so loud," she recalled on Jimmy Kimmel Live! "I have a real fear of flying, obviously, but nobody else does." The plane later landed in Ontario, California, after finding debris from a wheel on the runway.
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Justin Timberlake
The "Man of the Woods" singer is so terrified of spiders that he once needed to call for assistance to remove the eight-legged insect.
“I was staying in a really fancy hotel on my vacation, and as I put my bag down inside my room, I spotted a massive spider just sitting on the bed,” he told PopDirt in 2003. “I’m terrified of spiders, so I could hardly move, let alone get rid of it. I actually had to call the front desk to get someone to remove it for me.”
