Fear is a natural human emotion. What are celebrities afraid of? What are the powers that be scared stiff of? Some trifle thing may deprive from sleep if it turns into phobia. Social phobia is a fear of behaving in the public (the fear of public speeches, of eating in public dining places, of using public lavatory or the fear of meeting strangers and persons of the opposite sex).
For example, because of her fear of public speeches, Kim Basinger could hardly speak at the Oscar ceremony while she rehearsed her speech a few days at a run.
Zoophobia is a fear of animals, particularly of some specific specimen. Each zoophobia has its own name and treatment. Arachnophobes Jonny Depp and Justin Timberlake are afraid of spiders.
Orlando Bloom can’t stand hogs, Scarlett Johansson – cockroaches and Nicole Kidman is afraid of butterflies.
Entomophobia (the fear of insects) and herpetophobia (the fear of reptiles) is very often of selective nature. Britney Spears, for example, fears only Komodo dragon among the other lizards.
Mysophobia is a haunting fear of contamination, infections and related diseases. Rhypophobia (the fear of contact with dirt) is a type of mysophobia. The fear of infections haunts many celebrities. They use handkerchiefs to grab door handles. Michel Jackson never parts with his bandage against germs.
Hilary Duff is so afraid of dirt that she can’t go to bed until she does the cleaning in the room a few times. Scarlett Johansson prefers to clean her hotel room long before a housekeeper shows up.
Dentophobe Robert de Niro avoids dentists because he fears that they can infect him while making tooth fillings.
Phobias of some celebrities are so strange that they are impossible to classify. For example, Tom Cruise is afraid of going bald. The actor counts every hair that comes out. Since their childhood, Johnny Depp and Paff Daddy have been terrified by the clowns.
Alfred Hitchcock was also phobic. The king of horror movies was frightened of oval-shape things (ovophobia). The director felt ill at ease while he saw chicken eggs and balloons.
Source of the celebrity photos: starbuddies.com, msn.co.nz, mirror.co.uk, gala.fr, oktat.com, timeinc.net, tomcruise.com.ar.