Swedish minister's banana phobia leads staff to ensure it is nowhere near her

Swedish tabloid Expressen has revealed that the country's gender Equality Minister Paulina Brandberg has such a phobia of bananas that government officials are making sure the yellow fruit is not present at any place she is going to visit. The tabloid viewed several leaked emails and quoted from them in its report to say that Brandberg’s staff had gone to great lengths to ensure that the fruit was never anywhere near her during her official visits.

As per the emails, her staff had asked for any bananas to be removed before several meetings and trips.

“Paulina Brandberg has a strong allergy to bananas, so it would be appreciated that there are no bananas in the areas where she will be staying,” one of the emails from the ministry addressed to the Norwegian Judicial Agency reads ahead of a VIP lunch.

Brandberg also spoke with Expressen on Wednesday and said "It’s sort of an allergy, you could say." "It’s something that I get professional help with," she stated in another email to the news outlet.

In a few other instances of her staff asking for bananas to be removed, Politico reported that her team emailed a county administrative board, telling them “no bananas are allowed on the premises.”

Her staff once told Swedish Parliament Speaker Andreas Norlén “no traces of bananas must be in the room” during her meeting with a colleague, owing to a “strong allergy”.

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Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said that Brandberg’s problem had not affected government work.

“I have all the respect for people who have different phobias,” he said. “I am disturbed when a hard-working cabinet minister is almost reduced to a phobia and people make fun of it. I think you should be too good for that.”

Brandberg's social media posts

In 2020, Brandberg admitted in posts on X that she has a phobia of bananas. However, Politico reported that the posts seem to have been taken down after the latest report.

She called it the "world’s craziest phobia" on Aug 6, 2020, and then wrote on Sept 11, 2020, "I have a phobia of bananas".

There are several phobias and food allergies that are not officially classified. Bananaphobia is a rare ailment and has not been classified officially. According to the International Classification of Diseases, fears of food are placed in a group of specific, isolated phobias.