The stars earning from beyond the grave
As social media brings us all closer to celebrities than ever before, many stars are choosing to keep their children out of the spotlight. Given what we're learning about the effects of growing up in the public eye, it certainly seems like the safest choice. Many of the child stars who came up through the likes of the Disney Channel and 'The Mickey Mouse Club' are now fully-fledged adults who are looking back at their experiences and sharing the dark truths about exploitation and abuse. Even those who weren't directly harmed by the adults around them still have their fair share of trauma to work through.
Child labor is prohibited around the world for good reason, but the entertainment industry has always been a controversial exception. Click through this gallery to read about what it's really like to be a child star.
Demi Lovato knows the dangers of child stardom better than most. The singer and actress grew up working with the Disney Channel and has since had issues with substance abuse, eating disorders, and mental illness. Lovato is now working on a Hulu documentary that focuses on the realities of being a child star, and what happens when popularity starts to fade. "There is no better film or topic for my directorial debut than this story, which is close to home," she said in a statement.
"Our project sheds light on important messages about growing up in the public eye, learning to protect our boundaries and becoming active advocates of our own destinies."
The names of the documentary's other participants are currently under wraps, but Lovato has confirmed that she will be talking to several other former child stars about their experiences in the industry. It's expected to be released sometime in 2024.
The 2023 Razzies demonstrated just how little protection there is for young stars. The Golden Raspberry Awards, as they're formally called, are a satire of Hollywood award shows celebrating what they deem to be the worst in cinema, and this year they nominated 12-year-old actress Ryan Kiera Armstrong for Worst Actress for her performance in 'Firestarter.' Backlash naturally ensued, and the organization apologized, removed Armstrong from the nominees, and introduced a minimum age of 18 for all future nominees.
Selena Gomez got her big break on the show 'Barney & Friends' when she was just 10 years old and went on to land a lead role in the Disney series 'Wizards of Waverly Place.' This put her in the spotlight during her adolescence, and she recalls feeling exploited and violated. Paparazzi would follow her and take photos of her in a bikini at the beach when she was 15 years old. "I was a young girl and they were grown men. I didn't like that feeling."
Zachery Ty Bryan made it big when he was just 10 years old by landing the role of Brad Taylor on the hit sitcom 'Home Improvement.' He starred as the eldest son for the shows run between 1991 and 1999. He had a few roles after that but his acting career petered out by 2010. By that time, he was pursuing a career as a producer, but ended up becoming a Bitcoin millionaire thanks to some early investments in cryptocurrency. He's been embroiled in scandal in recent years as his marriage came to an end in 2020 right before he was arrested for assaulting his new girlfriend. In June 2023, news broke that Bryan has been accused of scamming investors through a fraudulent startup. On June 22, Bryan opened up to the Hollywood Reporter about all the allegations and his history of substance abuse.
Bryan recalled that his troubles started at an early age, during the height of his fame. "I started drinking when I was 14. Back then, I was going to nightclubs and they would just let me in because I was the kid from Home Improvement." Over the years he continued to struggle with alcohol and picked up multiple DUIs, the most recent in 2020 when his life really began to go off the rails. It was the year he announced his separation from his wife of 13 years, Carly Matros.
As for the assault charges, Bryan claims it was all blown out of proportion. The woman in question was his girlfriend at the time, Johnnie Faye Cartwright, whom he began seeing while still married. She claims that he was abusive in the month leading up to the assault, and on that night he punched her in the face and choked her for 45 seconds. Bryan says that it was highly exaggerated but that he plead guilty to a misdemeanor to save time and trouble. He also told THR that he doesn't consider himself an alcoholic but admits that he does have a problem with alcohol, and is choosing to avoid it for now. Bryan's story is still playing out, but his TV dad, Tim Allen, has hope for the former child star. "At a certain point, he deviated from the guy I know to somebody who is reacting to situations that I had nothing to do with and can’t control," Allen says. "I don't know what happens when people get corrupted. You just don’t know. I know Zach's heart. He’s got to figure out his own way."
As for the assault charges, Bryan claimed it was all blown out of proportion. The woman in question was his girlfriend at the time, Johnnie Faye Cartwright, whom he began seeing while still married. She claims that he was abusive in the month leading up to the assault, and on that night he punched her in the face and choked her for 45 seconds. Bryan says that it was highly exaggerated but that he plead guilty to a misdemeanor to save time and trouble. He also told THR that he doesn't consider himself an alcoholic but admits that he does have a problem with alcohol, and is choosing to avoid it for now.
Bella Thorne's origin story is similar to that of Selena Gomez, and she was similarly exploited from a young age. She opened up on Emily Ratajkowski's podcast about a male director accusing her of "flirting" with him in an audition when she was just 10 years old. Thorne was shocked and disgusted that an adult man would ever interpret a child's behavior that way, no matter what she said or did.
Drew Barrymore grew up in a showbiz family and had a notoriously troubled childhood. She was a star by age seven thanks to the movie 'E.T.' (1982), and had developed an alcohol addiction by the age of 11. Her mother (right) reportedly took her out to parties up to five nights a week (once even to Studio 54) where she drank and smoked like an adult.
By the age of 12 she was addicted to drugs, and by 13 she was institutionalized. The psychiatric hospital where she spent 18 months helped her gain emancipation from her parents.
Miley Cyrus grew up in a famous family as the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, and made it big herself with the show 'Hannah Montana.' She started her journey to being a pop star at a young age, telling Harper's Bazaar, "When I was 11 or 12, I was put in full hair and makeup, a wig, and told what to wear by a group of mostly older men."
Cyrus says that she lived under immense pressure and developed body dysmorphia from being in full costume so often as a child. When she was no longer done up to look like Hannah Montana, she struggled to recognize herself.
Through the highly publicized dismantling of her conservatorship, the world has come to learn just how severely Britney Spears has been exploited and manipulated throughout her life. She got her start on 'The Mickey Mouse Club' in the '90s as a child, and by the age of 16 she had her first hit with 'Baby One More Time.'
The sexy schoolgirl look she wears in the video epitomizes the aesthetic that was curated by the adults around her to maximize her attraction and profitability. While still a minor, she was marketed as sexy yet virginal. As she grew into an adult under painful scrutiny, with the journalists questioning her on everything from breast implants to whether or not she had slept with her boyfriend yet, Spears was worked to the bone by her parents. By the age of 26, she suffered a mental breakdown and was trapped in a conservatorship.
Macaulay Culkin was Hollywood's favorite child actor of the '90s, starring in classics like 'Home Alone' (1990), 'My Girl' (1991), and 'Richie Rich' (1994). Culkin decided to step out of the spotlight in 1994 when he was just 14 and didn't act again for almost 10 years. Sadly, his parents started to fight over the millions of dollars he had accumulated in his trust fund when they divorced in 1995, and Culklin felt forced to remove their names from the trust. Rumors started to circulate that he had emancipated himself, although he later denied this.
Demi Lovato was a star by the age of 10 and had landed a role in the Disney series 'Camp Rock' by age 16. By 18, Lovato was in rehab for drug addiction, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and was struggling with an eating disorder.
Natalie Portman played roles that sexualized her as a child at the beginning of her career in the '90s. In movies like 'Léon: The Professional' (1994) and 'Beautiful Girls' (1996), she played young girls who were given adult attributes. In a 2020 interview, she shared that this premature sexualization made her feel unsafe.
"It made me feel like the way I could be safe was to be like, 'I'm conservative,' and 'I'm serious and you should respect me,' and 'I'm smart,' and 'Don't look at me that way,'" she explained.
Kirsten Dunst also started her acting career as a child in the '90s. She landed a role in the 1994 movie 'Interview with the Vampire' opposite stars like Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Antonio Banderas when she was 11 years old. She was playing a child vampire, essentially a woman trapped in a child's body, and remembers her acting coach teaching her how to make her face sexy and mysterious. She also had to kiss an adult Brad Pitt on the lips, which she described as "gross" at the time. Like many child actors, Dunst went on to suffer from severe depression, and ended up in rehab at age 27.
He went on to describe his own issues with drug and alcohol abuse: “I started doing pretty heavy drugs at 19 and abused all my relationships.... I became resentful, disrespectful to women, and angry. I became distant to everyone who loved me.... By 20, I made every bad decision you could have thought of and went from one of the most loved and adored people in the world to the most ridiculed, judged, and hated person in the world.” Bieber once revealed that his drug problem was so bad that his security would sneak into his room at night to check his pulse.
Jennette McCurdy made headlines in 2022 with the release of her memoir titled 'I'm Glad My Mom Died.' McCurdy started acting at the age of eight and had her breakthrough role on the Nickelodeon show 'iCarly.' She has since revealed that her mother was extremely abusive and that she was exploited throughout her childhood and adolescence, both at home and on set. McCurdy says that she was pressured to drink underage on set by certain crew members and was yelled at repeatedly while filming her first kiss with co-star Nathan Kress. Her mother exploited her financially, controlled her day-to-day life, and encouraged her eating disorder.
Lindsay Lohan became a child model at the age of three and landed her first leading role in 'The Parent Trap' (1998) when she was 12. Sadly, Lohan is one of the first examples that come to mind when talking about child stars who went off the rails. By age 20, she had developed a drinking problem and was attending AA meetings. She was arrested 10 times in a matter of years, mostly for drug- and alcohol-related offenses, and had six court-ordered stints in rehab.
Amanda Bynes has a similar story to Lindsay Lohan. She got her start on Nickelodeon and experienced meteoric success during her childhood and teen years, but by the time she was in her twenties, things were already going downhill. Bynes has revealed that she started abusing Adderall in her teens after hearing that it was the new "skinny pill."
Musician Aaron Carter, brother to Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, often spoke about his abusive background. He was financially exploited by his parents as a child, and when he turned 18 and was given control of the money he had earned, he discovered that he was in debt to the IRS. He was forced to file for bankruptcy in his twenties.
Raven-Symoné, also known by the mononym Raven, began her career on 'The Cosby Show' when she was just three years old. The actress was severely body-shamed throughout her childhood and was often told she was overweight and was prevented from eating on set. She remembers being told, "You can’t eat that. You’re getting fat!’ I’m like, ‘I’m seven! I’m hungry!’" She laments the fact that she didn't grow up during a more body-positive era, and says, "I probably wouldn't have so many mental issues."
Ariel Winter grew up before our eyes in the series 'Modern Family,' which ran for 11 years. When she hit puberty at 13, she was both body-shamed and sexualized for her increased weight and breast size. Behind the scenes, Winter was living in isolation with her mother, who she says emotionally and physically abused her, and even pushed her to sexualize herself at a young age. Winter emancipated herself from her mother at 14 and moved in with her older sister. Winter had to develop a thick skin when it came to strangers commenting on her changing body as a teenager, as she was constantly bombarded with misogynistic insults simply for having a larger chest.
At the age of three, she was used in a "humorous" series of short films called 'Baby Burlesks,' which satirized famous movies. Temple and dozens of other infants were dressed up as adult characters, often in sexually suggestive situations. If any of the children misbehaved or were uncooperative, they were put in a small windowless sound booth dubbed the “punishment box" where they were forced to sit on a block of ice. Temple quit acting by the time she reached adulthood, but discovered that her father had squandered the millions she made by the time she turned 18.
The terrible truth about child stardom
The dark realities of growing up in the entertainment industry
CELEBRITY Child stars
As social media brings us all closer to celebrities than ever before, many stars are choosing to keep their children out of the spotlight. Given what we're learning about the effects of growing up in the public eye, it certainly seems like the safest choice. Many of the child stars who came up through the likes of the Disney Channel and 'The Mickey Mouse Club' are now fully-fledged adults who are looking back at their experiences and sharing the dark truths about exploitation and abuse. Even those who weren't directly harmed by the adults around them still have their fair share of trauma to work through.
Child labor is prohibited around the world for good reason, but the entertainment industry has always been a controversial exception. Click through this gallery to read about what it's really like to be a child star.