Miley Cyrus says her bizarre Christmas-related phobia makes her 'want to vomit'

Miley Cyrus has revealed that she has a crippling phobia which is particularly tough to deal with during the festive season.

The former Disney star, 33, started gagging as she explained how her irrational fear 'affects her everyday life' during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

And because the object she is scared sh*tless of is pretty much inescapable throughout the month of December, she admitted that she's become known as a 'little bit of a Grinch'.

While sitting down with the chat show host on Thursday (4 December), Cyrus opened up about her 'qualm with Christmas' that doesn't put her in a very merry mood.

"I hate paper," the 'Flowers' singer told Kimmel, before gesturing towards his cue cards and saying: "Like, looking at that makes me want to vomit."

Miley Cyrus, 33, became visibly sickened by the mere mention of paper (YouTube/Jimmy Kimmel Live!)

While retching, Cyrus explained that the 'real problem is when people have dry hands and they touch paper'.

And because the winter months are colder and 'everyone's hands are dry', her phobia really kicks up a notch.

The Tennessee-born star explained that she 'doesn't open' letters she receives because of her aversion to paper, so she much prefers to communicate through text messages.

Cyrus went on to thank Kimmel for mostly winging his chats with the guests on his show, saying that she 'would die' if he constantly had to flick through his cue cards.

Explaining how the phobia impacts her day-to-day, she continued: "It's affecting my everyday life. Like someone gets an Amazon box, I'm sick, because cardboard is the worst of it all."

"It's extra dry and there's packaging within it," Cyrus said, before hilariously adding: "That's really why I got engaged, because I just make my fiancé open all the packages outside."

The Last Song actress announced that her other half, musician Maxx Morando, 27, had got down on one knee during a recent trip to Asia earlier this week.

Ahead of 25 December, Cyrus said that her loved ones will instead slip her Christmas gifts into a 'silk stocking', as 'anything that she wants is usually pretty small' - while the fabric doesn't have that dreaded 'dryness' she despises.

She joked that she only got engaged to Maxx Morando so that he could open her letters and parcels (Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

She told Kimmel that her phobia is only 'getting worse' with age, leaving her weighing up hypnotism or EMDR therapy to help it, as she added: "There does need to be some sort of intervention."

Cyrus said that modern technology has helped her avoid paper in a lot of circumstances, adding: "I was so happy when the Kindle was invented, because that solved a lot of problems for me.

"The iPad solved a lot of problems for me."

The 33-year-old said she's had a phobia of paper since she was a kid, revealing that her siblings would 'torture' her by rubbing sheets of it together when they were on the wind up.

According to experts at the Cleveland Clinic, Cyrus' phobia is known as 'papyrophobia' in the medical field.

It explains that sufferers fear various types of paper - such as wallpaper, newspaper and wrapping paper - and seeing or touching the stuff.

Some may also be terrified by the thought of a paper cut, hearing the sound of someone crumpling paper, or even handling money.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), exposure therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), hypnotherapy and medications can all help people overcome the phobia, the Cleveland Clinic says.