A phobia is defined as “an extreme or irrational fear of something”. The feeling can range from disgust to downright terror.
For Oprah Winfrey it’s chewing gum that’s the problem. She once told The Late Show host Stephen Colbert that her aversion stems from her childhood. She explained: "I grew up poor in Mississippi and my grandmother used to try to save gum, so she would put it on the bedpost, she would put it on the cabinet."
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"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."
Singer and former One Direction boy band member Liam Payne can trace his mealtime phobia back to childhood too. In his case it’s not actually a food that upsets him, but something you use to eat. Ever since his school days he’s felt an aversion to other people’s spoons. Liam explained to London radio station Capital FM: "I’m not so much scared of spoons, I’ll hold one.
But I don’t like eating with them if they’re not my spoons, if that makes sense. It is a bit weird." He added.
"When I was a kid I was a bit naughty at school and when you were naughty they made you do the washing up. I had to wash all these nasty spoons and then it’s just stuck with me. I don’t know what people are doing with their spoons. I don’t want to know!"
Model Kendall Jenner is another person who’s not afraid of food per se; it's the pattern on some foods which she can't handle. Speaking on her app, the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star revealed: "Anyone who knows me knows that I have really bad trypophobia." Trypophobics are afraid of clusters of small holes.
In Kendall’s case: "Things that could set me off are pancakes, honeycomb or lotus heads (the worst!). It sounds ridiculous but so many people actually have it! I can't even look at little holes - it gives me the worst anxiety. Who knows what's in there???"
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American actress Kyra Sedgwick has a food phobia that’s more likely to strike when she’s watching TV than when she’s eating. She can’t stand ‘talking’ food, like the fun figures that often crop up in TV advertisements. Kyra's movie star husband Kevin Bacon once revealed that she has to leave the room when commercials with talking foods are shown. Kevin even chose to turn down a part playing a huge peanut in an M&Ms ad. He explained: "I thought about it, and I said I can’t do that to my wife, because my marriage is more important. I really think she would have left me."
Even the late legendary film producer Alfred Hitchcock– who gave us some of the scariest movies ever, like Psycho and The Birds – actually had a phobia. Eggs were his own great fear. Alfred explained: "I'm frightened of eggs. That white round thing without any holes… have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid?"
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