Bella Ramsey shared what it’s like to live with emetophobia, or fear of vomit, and shared how it kept them housebound for months as a teen
The star of The Last of Us said it’s a “really intense fear” during a May 5 appearance on The Louis Theroux Podcast
They overcame it through emetophobic-specific therapy, but remain “slightly more averse” to vomit than people without the disorder
Bella Ramsey said their past struggle with the disorder emetophobia — a debilitating fear of vomit — kept them housebound as they saw “everything outside [as] a ”threat.”
The 21-year-old star of The Last of Us described it as “this really intense fear,” explaining, “If you feel a bit sick, if someone else feels sick or is sick, like, it’s the whole thing is absolutely terrifying,” on the May 5 episode of The Louis Theroux Podcast.
Ramsey — who uses they/them pronouns — shared that they underwent Emetophobia Free’s The Thrive Program, and while they said “I feel now that I’m not emetophobic anymore,” they still have “a slightly stronger reaction to vomit than the average person or I’m slightly more averse or afraid of it.”
Courtesy of Liane Hentscher/HBO
‘The Last of Us’ star Bella Ramsey as Ellie in season 2 of the Max hit.
“The concept of having a stomach bug or having norovirus is enough [to trigger the phobia],” the Game of Thrones alum explained, going on to describe how the phobia can cause them to ruminate on sickness. “It’s such an all-encompassing fear.”
Being around someone sick, they said, causes a focus on “the unpredictability of, like, ‘I don’t know if I’ve got this.’ … Say, if I’ve been in contact with someone who has got norovirus, for the next like 2 weeks, it’s a thing of monitoring how I’m feeling.”
That then triggers concerns, they explained: “Like, what if I go out and go on the tube and then the symptoms come and I start to feel unwell. Now I throw up on the tube and how bad is that?” they explained, adding that when they were 13, “There was a time in which I couldn’t leave my house … because everything outside was a threat.”
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Bella Ramsey in New York in 2024.
“The only safe place in the world was home, and even that wasn’t safe at times,” Ramsay said, sharing they would stay home for months at a time. “People have been, like, walking outside in the street and come in in shoes. In the emetophobic brain, there’s, like, vomiting bug germs on the shoes.”
“And then the shoes have gone through the house,” they continued, “and then you sat on the floor and then that’s on your clothes. And then you’ve touched your jeans. And then suddenly you’ve got the vomiting bug germs on your hands from all of these steps.”
They acknowledged that “logically it’s not something to be afraid of,” and explained overcoming it is rooted in looking at what disgusts you. Calling the fear “intense,” Ramsey said “there was a time which I thought that I’d rather, like, die than throw up.”
“It’s the thought process,” they explained. “You go out … it’s like you can see germs, you see like sickness, everywhere. Terrifying … it used to affect me on set as well.”
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Bella Ramsey in London in April 2025.
Ramsey explained it was “the source of most of my anxiety growing up. 98% of it was rooted in this emetophobia fear.”
If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
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