Movie hunk Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson faced up to his fear of spiders on U.s. TV on Thursday when he held a tarantula on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

The former wrestler confessed he had no idea what sparked his arachnophobia - but he can't remember a time when he hasn't been terrified of spiders.

He said, "There wasn't anything that happened in my past."

The Rock squirmed and sweated as a spider wrangler walked onto the set - but he agreed to hold the beast after host DeGeneres told him she'd give cinema tickets to her entire audience if he took the challenge.

Johnson cupped his hands and let the spider go crawling.