Famous People With Phobias

The famous are not immune to having phobias, and in fact, suffer them just as much as other Americans do; experts estimate that roughly 1 out of 20 Americans suffer from one or more phobias.

One of the most common forms of phobia includes fear of flying, or aviophobia (also known as aerophobia).

Famous people who suffer from this disorder (which is, ironically, most inconvenient, considering that they need to have expedient transportation) include: Aretha Franklin, singer; Whoopi Goldberg, actor; Billy Bob Thornton, actor; and boxing champion Muhammad Ali. Former President Ronald Reagan was also aerophobic.

Natalie Wood was hydrophobic, or had a fear of water; this was especially disturbing and raised some questions because she drowned in an apparent boating accident in 1981.

Tennis star Andre Agassi is arachnophobic, or has a fear of spiders. Author Anne Rice has stated that she is afraid of the dark, also called ahluophobia. Adolf Hitler was claustrophobic.

Napoleon Bonaparte, who was the emperor of France, suffered from ailurophobia, a fear of cats.

Donny Osmond suffered from anxiety and panic attacks so severe during the run of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat that he was afraid he was going to pass out.

He actually avoided shopping centers, not necessarily because of agoraphobia, but because he thought people were going to recognize him and make fun of him.

Therapy and medication helped him overcome this. Notably, this is often how agoraphobia develops, which is a fear of open spaces; sufferers of agoraphobia can become housebound, and often, agoraphobia develops slowly over time because people seek to avoid those situations that cause them panic, not because they start with a fear of open spaces.

As their panic becomes more and more severe, and they avoid more and more situations, they slowly become truly agoraphobic.

Barbra Streisand has social phobia; social phobia is often something many of us experience, to some degree or another.

We may be standing in line at the post office, and be very self-conscious because we think everyone is looking at us. Of course, this is not true, but we still feel it is.

While most young people, such as adolescents, often experience this as a developmental stage and simply because those years are often fraught with self-consciousness anyway, adults can also develop this in more severe and lasting form.

(Of course, adolescents can develop social phobia to the point where it needs treatment as well, and it can also continue into adulthood, but it is just that in adolescence, this is often a mere developmental stage.)

Streisand’s phobia apparently began in 1967, when she was on stage and forgot the lyrics to the song she was singing. After that experience, she began to fear that she would embarrass herself and gave up singing in public for quite awhile.

Through medication and therapy, she learned to control these fears and began to sing in public again in 1994.