There are socially accepted phobias, like the fear of spiders, others that are more easily described as bizarre, like chorophobia (fear of dancing), and then there is the Michael Jackson phobia. Yes, the irrational and unjustified fear of the “king of pop”.
While the late Michael Jackson is still adored by millions of fans From all over the world, there is one girl in particular who claims to suffer from a crippling case of singer phobia.
This is Ruby Marriott, 18, originally from the United Kingdom, who went extraordinarily viral after her sister Macey shared a video on TikTok showing her total dread of the interpreter of beatit.
In an interview for South West News ServiceRuby narrated that the images correspond to her most recent panic attack caused by the singer Michael Jackson while having fun the first night of a family vacation in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, to attend the wedding of her uncles.
Everything was going well until her joy ended in tears after an impersonator of the late singer showed up at the bar where Ruby was with her family.
It was my first night in Ayia Napa and the funny thing is that the first bar we entered was very quiet and there were not many people. We had no idea there would be tribute acts, so we went in and had a few drinks.
Ruby said that she has “a genuine fear of Michael Jackson”, which, no matter how hard she tries, she cannot overcome, because it can even be triggered by something as simple as listening to a song by the iconic performer.
Even when his music plays I feel a wave of fear. ‘Thriller’ is the song that scares me the most, especially because I saw the music video when I was five years old and it’s one of his biggest hits, so it’s heard a lot around me. If someone plays their songs, I have to leave the room.
According to Ruby, much of her fear stems from people showing off their creepy Photoshopped edits of Michael Jackson, causing her dislike for the singer to grow larger.
The photoshopped photos of him have made my phobia worse, people just send or show them to me and remind me of him coming out of my wardrobe. I am now 18 years old and the phobia has not improved.
Just three days after its publication, Ruby’s clip has become enormously viral on the short video platform, where it currently exceeds 12 million views, perhaps not only because of the singular phobia of Michael Jackson, because, apparently, it is more common than it seems, since the comments section has been flooded by users who also said they felt terrified by the missing “king of pop”:
‘I thought I was the only person.’ “I swear I understand her because for years I couldn’t see photos of him and when she died, I thought she was going to appear to me at night.” ‘As a little girl I thought he was going to show up in my room, the song ‘Thriller’ also scared me. Now I love him.’ ‘It happens to my sister, Michael Jackson scares her ever since she saw a parody of him, it gives her an uncomfortable feeling like ‘The Cat in the Hat’ or something like that.