I hate clowns and I can trace it to one pivotal event in my life. My parents took me to the circus when I was three. A clown on stilts (making him close to 3 meters tall) reached across the crowd and grabbed me by the cheeks and pinched me. Hard. Staring into my eyes. Then he ripped my soul from me and tried to devour my parents whole.
True story. Except the cannibalism part.