How Celebrities Face Their Worst Fears

The Fear: Perhaps it was inevitable that beloved American institution Donnie Osmond would develop a paralyzing dread of another beloved American institution: the shopping mall. One night while starring in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Osmond had a panic attack so severe that (as he later wrote) “I honestly believed I was dying.” It was part of a pattern of social anxiety that had dogged him for most of his life. One focal point became an extreme fear of malls, where he became convinced everyone was ridiculing him.

The Resolution: Osmond worked with a cognitive-behavior psychologist who showed him that many of his worries were groundless. Among his psychological exercises: buying a shirt at a shopping center, then returning it the next day—without disaster! “I survived,” Osmond said, “and even learned to laugh along with the people I always feared were laughing at me.”

Stephen King: AFP/Getty Images Typwriter: Neal Peters Collection

The Fear: Stephen King has a surefire and highly profitable method for dealing with his myriad anxieties about enormous rats, evil cars and pissed-off spirits: he writes about them. Horrifyingly, though, King’s worst phobia did indeed come true—right after he went through recovery for drug and alcohol abuse, he suffered a seemingly intractable case of writer’s block.

The Resolution: The syndrome almost sent him back to his addictions, but his wife Tabitha prompted him to write one word at a time, much like a stroke victim relearning to speak, until he could face his fear and regained his stride. “The scariest moment is always just before you start,” King later said. “After that, things can only get better.”

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The Fear: Everything about Oprah Winfrey seems a bit special, including her crippling angst around gum and the people who chew it. The condition dates from her childhood, when her grandmother would stick used wads of gum to the furniture, even saving the offending deposits in a cabinet, lined up in rows.

The Resolution: Winfrey has never sought therapy for this aversion, nor does she have to. Her staff knows not to chew the stuff; studio audiences at her long-running TV show were instructed to leave their gum safely within their purses. One guest at Winfrey’s house, though, never got the message: she took some gum from her mouth and stuck it on her dinner plate. Later that night, Winfrey took the defiled china and tossed it in the garbage. It’s not known whether a return invitation was proffered.

The Fear: For an A-list movie star, divulging an alternative lifestyle has long been considered a risky prospect that could spell the end of a leading-lady career. That could explain the case of Jodie Foster, who for many years lived with another woman—even raising children with her—while tripping on tortured answers to that boilerplate celebrity magazine question: “So who are you dating?” After years of awkward evasions, she flat-out refused to discuss her private affairs any longer. “It would be trivializing my life—selling it for a magazine,” she said.

The Resolution: At age 50, Foster took a decisive leap at revealing herself in a rambling speech this year’s Golden Globes, where she expressed “a sudden urge to say something that I’ve never been able to air in public.... Loud and proud, right?” The reaction of industry and public? Not shock, but simple relief

The Fear: Not only did the classic zombie flick Isle of the Dead send shivers down the spine of ten-year-old Martin Scorsese, a scene toward the end of the film—when a woman who’s been buried alive arises from her grave, wearing a white shroud and bent on vengeance—scared the director-to-be so thoroughly that he ran out of the theater screaming. It gave him nightmares for most of his life.

The Resolution: Scorsese says he was finally able to address this long festering fear when he made his creepy 2010 thriller Shutter Island, a decidedly untypical entry from the Goodfellas auteur. It’s a film where unseen and unspeakable terrors seem to lurk around every corner—an homage to the Hollywood shockers of Scorsese’s youth, and an exorcism of childhood terrors.

The Fear: Adele has a phobia that few of us can claim to share: a dire fear of other celebs. The prospect of meeting Beyoncé, for example, gave Adele, in her words, “a full-blown anxiety attack.” After their first tête-à-tête—a thoroughly chummy affair—she found herself on a balcony, crying hysterically.

The Resolution: Diva reinvention to the rescue! Inspired by Beyoncé’s relentlessly-promoted alter ego, Sasha Fierce, she decided to create her own imaginary self: Sasha Carter—a melding of Fierce and June Carter, the famously gutsy country star. Now when Adele faces confidence-testing situations (like encounters with people as famous as she is) it’s bold Sasha Carter who steps in.

If these celebrities can succeed in overcoming fear with the added pressure of public perception, there’s nothing stopping you from being able to face your fears head on.