Considering how long it's been since she's had a hit you might think that Sophie Ellis Bextor had developed a phobia towards topping the charts. But no -- her major hang up is apparently door hinges, of which she claims to be scared witless.

"I saw a girl once get her fingers caught in a science-door hinge at school," the British singer breathlessly revealed to an interviewer recently. "She screamed and I just froze. It was horrible. I'm always careful when I hold doors."

No need to be blush, Sophie. You are in exalted company. Julius Caesar was reportedly terrified of dogs; Oliver Cromwell was said to suffer from anxiety when among large groups of people; Napoleon didn't like cats.

For modern celebrities, meanwhile, embarrassing hang-ups are practically part of the job description. Billy Bob Thornton is afraid of flying; Macaulay Culkin has a dread of open spaces; Madonna suffers from brontophobia -- which, disappointingly, turns out to be fear of thunder rather than of long-necked dinosaurs. Read on to learn more about celebs and their outlandish hang-ups.

David Beckham

"Everything has to match in the house," says Beckham's wife Victoria, of the soccer stars's deep-set aversion to disorder. "If there are three cans of Diet Coke he'd throw one away rather than have three because it's uneven."

Goldenballs is believed to suffer from a condition called ataxophobia, a fear of chaos. At Chateaux Beckham, he files each shirt according to its colour. Open his fridge and by all accounts you will see tins of food lined up in neat ranks.

"He makes perfect arrangements out of things," said Ian Denyar, who directed a 2002 TV documentary about Beckham. "The DVD player has to be parallel to the edge of the table."

P Diddy

He'll deny it, but bad-boy hip hop mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs is reported to break out in a cold sweat every time he sees a clown. (Rumour has it that there is a 'no clown' clause in his performance contracts.)

Johnny Depp

The Sweeney Todd star is more open about his terror of men in white make-up and messy lipstick. "There's something about the painted face, the fake smile," he said. "There always seemed to be a darkness lurking just under the surface, a potential for real evil. Something must have happened when I was a kid."

Christina Ricci

Whatever you do, don't buy goth-next-door Ricci a petunia as a house-warming gift -- the actress has 'fessed up to a bad case of botanophobia, a fear of plants. "They are dirty," says Ricci of house plants. "If I have to touch one, after already being repulsed by the fact that there is a plant indoors, then it just freaks me out."

She's not too keen on swimming pools either: "I won't swim in a pool by myself because I think that somehow a little magic door is going to open up and let the shark out."

Alfred Hitchcock

Thanks to Psycho's iconic murder scene, a generation of cinema-goers were afraid to shower alone. But Hitchcock himself was terrified of something more banal: eggs.

"He hated eggs, unless they were disguised in a soufflé," said his daughter Patricia O'Connell. "He just said they were so horrible-looking -- that you'd cut into them and that yellow stuff would run all over. He thought it was absolutely disgusting."

During the making of The Birds, actress Susan Pleshette was pulled to one side by Hitchcock's assistant: "She said, 'Don't put your cigarette out in your eggs,'" Pleshette said. "'He hates eggs, he hates cigarettes, and frankly, he hates you.'"

Kelly Osbourne

Here's one showbiz luvvie who doesn't appreciate being greeted with a peck on both cheeks. Osborne, daughter of heavy metal godfather Ozzy, has a thing about personal contact. "All you have to do is touch her collarbone," said her brother Jack. "It's awesome -- she starts dry retching."

Woody Allen

Allen accumulates phobias the way footballers collect sports cars.Among the many to which he has confessed are a morbid fear of dogs, children, sunshine, small rooms, cancer and heights. In particular, he has a dread of insects and spiders. Perhaps this explained his close creative relationship with latest 'muse' Scarlett Johansson, who is said to have a hang-up about cockroaches.

It could be worse -- Pirates of the Caribbean star Orlando Bloom is afraid of pigs.

Sarah Michelle Gellar

She may have achieved fame as a superbad vampire slayer, but Buffy star Gellar is creeped out by graveyards: "I really fear graveyards and I have a big phobia of being buried alive.

"It was really hard being an ass-kicking vampire slayer when you are afraid of graves."

- Ed Power