phobia nestled deep in their subconscious. Though the trappings of fame and fortune can insulate a person from some of life’s hardships, many celebrities seem to fall victim to unusual – and sometimes even downright bizarre – phobias.
Take US TV personality Tyra Banks, for instance, who admitted to a lifelong fear of dolphins (delfiniphobia), which manifested as a recurring nightmare.
Or One Direction star Niall Horan, who has confessed to a crippling fear of pigeons – something corroborated by ex-bandmate Harry Styles. “I think pigeons target me,” Horan confessed, after an incident in which one of the feathered fiends flew in through his bathroom window.
There’s a chance Stephen King may be responsible for more nightmares than any other human on the planet, but he himself was not immune to a scare: the Shining author has confessed to having triskaidekaphobia, a fear of the number 13. “When I’m writing, I’ll never stop work if the page number is 13 or a multiple of 13,” he once said. “I’ll just keep on typing till I get to a safe number. ”These and other celebrity phobias are explored in The Book of Phobias and Manias: A History of the World in 99 Obsessions, a new non-fiction book by Kate Summerscale.
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