OSCAR winner Whoopi Goldberg has unveiled the reason behind her fear of flying - a man died in the seat next to her on one of her first ever plane rides.

The GHOST star currently avoids flying by travelling around America in her bus, and she admits it's all because of an unexpected death a number of years ago.

She says, "One of the first times I ever flew, I was flying from London to New York and a guy passed away next to me. This was not cute!

"You don't know exactly that they're gone because he just kinda slumped, and then he sort of slumped onto me. I was like, 'Get off me!' And he just kept slumping forward. I called the stewardess... and she kept patting and patting him. I said, 'Just pick him up! Just pull him off me!' And she touched him and said, 'I think he's dead.'

"I said, 'Okay, we have to alter this reality. You gotta get him outta here!' She said, 'Well, the plane is booked up. We have no place to put him.' I said, 'You better put him somewhere!' But you were not supposed to move people when they die, in the old days."

09/04/2005 02:24