Nicole Kidman, Scarlett Johansson among Hollywood stars with unique fears: 'Only scared of birds'
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/nicole-kidman-scarlett-johansson-among-hollywood-stars-unique-fears
By Lori A. Bashian
Fox News
November 26, 2023
Pancakes and butterflies and paper, oh my!
Celebrities have spoken out over the years about their fears and phobias, including Kendall Jenner and Nicole Kidman. While being afraid of mirrors or dry paper might seem strange to some people, the fears are very real for these celebrities.
Here's a look at some things Hollywood stars are afraid of.
Kendall Jenner
Kendall Jenner shared which breakfast food makes her nervous, making the morning a difficult time of day for her.
The model wrote on her now-defunct app in 2016: "[A]nyone who knows me knows that I have really bad trypophobia." Trypophobia is the fear of small holes arranged in a pattern.
"Things that could set me off are pancakes, honeycomb or lotus heads (the worst!). It sounds ridiculous but so many people actually have it!" Jenner explained. "I can’t even look at little holes—it gives me the worst anxiety. Who knows what’s in there???"
Other celebrities, such as Sarah Paulson, have also been open about their trypophobia, telling Graham Norton on "The Graham Norton Show" that she is afraid of bees, honeycomb and sponges as a result of her trypophobia. She also told Ellen DeGeneres that her phobia was written into "American Horror Story: Cult" as her character, Ally, also suffered from it.
Nicole Kidman
Butterfly season is definitely not Nicole Kidman's favorite time of year.
Kidman revealed she's had a fear of butterflies since her childhood in Australia. She recalled coming home to find "the biggest butterfly or moth you'd ever seen" waiting "on [her] front gate" after she got home from school. To get away from them, she said she "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," she told Contact Music in January 2005. "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."
Oprah Winfrey
Media mogul Oprah Winfrey opened up about the thing that creeps her out the most: Gum.
During an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" in March 2018, Winfrey told Colbert she banned gum from her office and that "everybody at work knows" not to chew gum in front of her.
"It comes from my childhood. I grew up poor in Mississippi, and my grandmother – absolutely no hyperbole whatsoever – my grandmother used to try to save gum, so she would put it on the bedpost, she would put it on the cabinet," she told Colbert. "As a child, I used to bump into it, and it would rub up against me, and you know what it’s like when you’ve taken it out of your mouth, and it’s been out a couple of weeks? It’s bad. And so I was afraid of it."
While she is able to ban it at work, Winfrey has come to terms with not being able to avoid it everywhere. When she sees someone chewing gum elsewhere, she says her method of dealing with it is: "I ignore it. I pretend I don't see it. I keep moving."
Megan Fox
For Megan Fox, the hardest part of getting a new script isn't the daunting task of having to memorize her lines. It's having to actually pick it up and read through it.
When speaking to Wonderland Magazine in September 2009, Fox admitted she is afraid of dry pieces of paper. While it may sound strange, there are others who feel the same as her. The phobia is called papyrophobia, which can manifest as a fear of touching paper, writing on it or getting cut by it.
"I can’t stand to touch newspapers. Anything laminated is fine. Actual dry a-- paper, I can’t touch. It gives me chill bumps. It’s like nails on a chalkboard," she told the magazine. "Or like tissue paper, people can’t touch me with dry things like that. I get really upset. It’s something about how dry it is that I can’t touch it. Those are my main fears."
She also discussed her unique phobia with Jimmy Fallon during an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" in September 2009. She explained that she keeps "a cup of water to dip [her] fingers in" or has to "keep licking [her] fingers" when reading so that the pages stay wet.
Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson is certainly not a fan of Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds."
During an interview with Vulture in December 2011, Johansson revealed she has a fear of birds, which made filming "We Bought a Zoo" especially difficult. One scene that featured a peacock was scary to film because she "was terrified of them" and didn't want them to "get too close," saying that "they’re like, mean."
"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. If they’d asked me to put a bird on my shoulder I would’ve done it, but it would’ve been hard," she told the outlet. "Actually, my uncle is terrified of birds as well, so it runs in the family."
Pamela Anderson
Pamela Anderson is not a fan of her reflection.
When speaking with the Daily Mail, the "Baywatch" actress once said, "I have this phobia: I don't like mirrors."
Anderson also revealed that she doesn't like to watch anything she has acted in, saying, "I don’t watch myself on television. If anything comes on, I make them shut if off or I leave the room."
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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