Amber Wilson: TikToker goes viral after sharing ‘debilitating’ fruit phobia

A woman has taken the internet by storm after sharing a video of herself confronting a lifelong fear — fruit.

The clip, captioned “exposure therapy for my fruit phobia”, shows Amber Wilson nervously biting into a piece of pineapple while her husband calmly talks her through the moment.

The video, which has amassed nearly 30 million views on TikTok, is one of many videos shared by the American, who has been documenting her journey of trying fruit for the first time after living with a severe phobia since childhood.

“I was actually born this way, believe it or not”, Ms Wilson told People.

“My mom fed me jarred blended baby food, but whenever she tried to switch me to solids, I would freak out every time she put it near me.”

Her fear isn’t just a dislike, it’s a full-body emotional response.

“It feels like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff and someone’s threatening to push me off,” she explained.

“I get sweaty, I get super nervous and anxious, and there’s this feeling of disgust that just completely grosses me out and makes me freak out.”

That reaction is clear in the video, where Ms Wilson recoils from the pineapple, covering her face with her shirt and declaring that it “stinks” as her husband slices the fruit in front of her.

At first, she simply stares at the tiny piece of chopped pineapple, her face turning red before she bursts into tears.

“I haven’t looked at (the fruit) this close before,” she said, laughing through tears.

Eventually, she gathers the courage to put the piece in her mouth, chewing slowly with a look of disgust as her husband gently reminds her to “breathe.” She quickly gulps down water to wash it away.

“The texture is weird, but that is way better than apple,” she said.

As a child, even the faint smell of a banana in the kitchen was enough to send Amber running from the room. At school, her friends eventually stopped packing fruit in their lunches after witnessing how visibly distressed she became whenever it was nearby.

“I would have to leave if someone was eating it in a small space and I could smell it,” Ms Wilson recalled.

“So it was a little debilitating as a kid, especially at lunch, but I’ve gotten a lot better as I’ve gotten older.”

The pineapple video marked only the second time Wilson had ever tried fruit — apple was the first — and the entire experiment stemmed from necessity.

“I thought I was going to go my entire life without eating fruit ever,” she explained.

“But we decided exposure therapy would probably be best for me, so we just put it in front of me and made me pick it up and try to take multiple bites.”

Since the video went viral on social media, Ms Wilson has gradually expanded her fruit repertoire, trying mango, grape, watermelon and blackberry.