Search Results for: child stars

Imagine being your family's breadwinner. A lot of pressure, right? Now imagine being the breadwinner before you even hit puberty—then hitting puberty, with all its acne and awkwardness, in the public eye, then being unemployed by the time you're a teenager and wondering if anyone will ever take you seriously again. Now does it make sense that these child stars hit rock bottom? Thankfully, most of them were able to, at least somewhat, claw their way back to a happy and healthy life. 1. Corey Feldman Nickiswift Corey Feldman became a child star at just 3 years old after appearing in more than 100 commercials, but he wasn't happy about it, describing the experience to the A.V. Club as "child slavery." Feldman's father was mostly absent, and his mother was reportedly abusive. He claimed that his need to numb the pain led him to try marijuana and alcohol for the first time on the set of Stand By Me (1986). It was the beginning of a long battle with substance abuse. Feldman also alleged that an assistant his father hired to look after him on film sets, whom he called "Ron," often plied the young actor with drugs and molested him—and that "Ron" was one of many in an alleged pedophilia ring in Hollywood. When he was 15, Feldman became legally emancipated from his parents, but they'd already allegedly squandered his earnings, leaving him a measly $40,000. People reported that Feldman moved into his own apartment at the time and began to climb the Hollywood ladder once more with hit movies such as The Lost Boys (1987), but his troubles had not vanished. He developed a cocaine habit followed by heroin, was arrested three times, and sent to rehab in December 1990. He claimed that other than one relapse in 1995, he has not used a hard drug since. Even without drugs, Feldman's adult life hasn't been entirely smooth sailing. He went viral in 2013 when Vice documented a paid birthday party at his home with his "Angels"—think of a really depressing, low budget Playboy Mansion celebration. He made the wrong kind of headlines again in September 2016 with a really awkward musical performance with his Angels on Today. Faced with public ridicule, Feldman wrote on Facebook (via People), "We put ourselves out there and we did the best that we could, and, like, I've never had such mean things said about me. Like constantly. Public shaming should not be accepted, no matter who you are." A bright spot in Feldman's life? He married his longtime girlfriend (and Angel), Courtney Anne, in November 2016. 2. Lindsay Lohan Nickiswift Lindsay Lohan rose to fame through Disney flicks The Parent Trap (1998) and became one of the biggest stars on the planet through her lead role in Mean Girls (2004). Unfortunately, her fall was as fast as her climb. According to Vanity Fair, she was hospitalized for "exhaustion" and asked to curb her partying in 2005, and revealed that she was bulimic and used drugs "a little" in 2006. (Lohan later claimed she was misquoted.) In 2007, she got two DUIs, was sentenced to three years of probation, and served 84 minutes in jail. In 2008, she went to rehab. In 2010, she was sentenced to 90 days in jail for violating her probation, though she only served 14 days behind bars. As soon as she left jail, she went to rehab again. In 2011, she was charged with felony grand theft for allegedly stealing a $2,500 necklace and sentenced to 120 days in jail and 480 days of community service for violating her probation; she served most of her sentence under house arrest. In November 2012, Lohan was charged with four criminal charges in two states on the same day. First, in California, she was charged with three crimes in relation to a minor car crash that June: giving false information to police, resisting arrest, and reckless driving. In the wee hours of the same day, she allegedly got into a physical fight with a woman at a nightclub in New York. In 2014, Lohan stayed out of legal trouble, but still attracted drama: a list of hookups she wrote about in rehab went public, and she revealed that she'd suffered a miscarriage. She stayed out of the tabloids for most of 2015, but 2016 brought more personal challenges, including a nasty split from Russian businessman Egor Tarabasov, whom she accused him of physically abusing her. At the time of this writing, Lohan is living in London and spends her time trying to help Syrian refugees. 3. Macaulay Culkin Nickiswift Home Alone (1989) star Macaulay Culkin retired from the spotlight, but it still finds him occasionally, and not for the best reasons. In 2004, at age 24, Culkin was arrested when cops reportedly busted him with 17.3 grams of marijuana, eight Xanax pills, 16 clonazepam pills, and no prescription. He was later rumored to be on heroin, an allegation he vehemently denied. At the time of this writing, Culkin has been keeping busy performing with his band, The Pizza Underground. 4. Leif Garrett Nickiswift One-time teen idol Leif Garrett went from a heartthrob to a harrowing case study in addiction. In 1979, the singer-actor was allegedly driving while under the influence when he crashed his Porsche. His passenger was paralyzed in the accident. Two decades later, Garrett was busted for allegedly trying to buy narcotics from undercover police officers. In 2006, he was nabbed for heroin possession. The Outsiders (1983) star's troubles continued in 2010, when he was arrested for possession of a controlled substance. At the time of this writing, Garrett seems to be working hard to overcome his past and build resiliency. He even offered some words of wisdom to wildly successful (and wildly controversial) pop star Justin Bieber. "Do not believe your own publicity," he told the Biebs, via Fox News. "Sussing out who your real friends are is full-time work. Every scum bag, every drug dealer, every chicken hawk wants a piece of you." 5. Danny Bonaduce Nickiswift Danny Bonaduce played a ginger cousin on The Partridge Family, but when the show ended, his troubles with addiction began. In 2013, he opened up to talk show host Oprah Winfrey on Where Are They Now about becoming homeless as a teenager. Bonaduce was arrested multiple times for drug-related offenses, and in one incident in 1991, he allegedly beat and robbed a transvestite prostitute. He documented his struggles with alcohol on the reality show Breaking Bonaduce from 2005 to 2006 and claimed he took his last drink on Jan. 10, 2011. At the time of this writing, he is hosting a successful syndicated radio show. 6. Dustin Diamond Nickiswift Saved by the Bell (1989-92) star Dustin Diamond was arrested in December 2014 for allegedly stabbing a man during a bar fight. He was sentenced to four months in jail but released early for good behavior. Unfortunately, that good behavior didn't last long. In May 2016, "Screech" was arrested again after testing positive for Oxycodone, the use of which was a violation of his probation. One month later, news broke that Diamond owed $94,000 in back taxes. In November 2016, Diamond apologized to his former SBTB castmates for his behavior during and after the show and expressed remorse for publishing his scandalous 2009 tell-all, Behind the Bell. 7. Jodie Sweetin Nickiswift Full House (1987-95) star Jodie Sweetin had a tough time adjusting to adulthood and reportedly turned to substance abuse and really hard partying as a means to cope. In her 2009 memoir, Unsweetined (via Today), she provides harrowing accounts of methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy, and alcohol abuse. She even writes about abusing substances even while giving speaking tours about her own sobriety. Sweetin went on to marry three times, become a mom to two daughters (one by her first husband and one by her third), and get clean. In 2016, she reprised her role as Stephanie Tanner on the Fuller House reboot and got engaged to her fourth husband-to-be, Justin Hodak. 8. Mackenzie Phillips Nickiswift In September 2009, former One Day at a Time (1975-84) star Mackenzie Phillips, daughter of The Mamas & the Papas rocker John Phillips, confessed on Oprah (via ABC News) that she'd had a consensual, incestuous relationship with her father for 10 years. (She alleged that John first raped her when she was 18, but that she chose to continue the relationship afterward.) Mackenzie claimed that when she became pregnant at 19, she wasn't sure if the baby was her father's or her husband's, and said her father paid for her to have an abortion. Mackenzie said she spiraled into drug use but forgave her father on his deathbed in 2001. She was arrested for cocaine possession at the Los Angeles International Airport in 2005. As for the validity of her troubling life story, Mackenzie's sisters, Bijou and Chynna, and stepmother Michelle Phillips, have all expressed anger and doubt about her claims, with Michelle alleging Mackenzie has a history of mental illness in addition to her struggles with substance abuse. Mackenzie has made peace with that criticism as well, telling Oprah: Where Are They Now—Extra (via The Huffington Post), "I love my family. I'm sorry that they were so wounded by my truth. It was really hard for all of us." 9. Jake Lloyd Nickiswift Jake Lloyd, who starred as young Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace (1999), led police on a high-speed car chase in June 2015, when he was 24 years old. The pursuit ended in a crash and a prison sentence. In April 2016, Lloyd's mother told TMZ he was being transferred from jail to a mental hospital to treat schizophrenia. She also alleged he'd attacked her weeks before the car chase while off his medication. At the time of this writing, there was no reported timetable for his release. His family just wants him to get better. 10. Brian Bonsall Nickiswift Child star Brian Bonsall, who appeared in Family Ties (1982-89) and Blank Check (1994), got into some trouble as an adult. According to the Daily Camera, he was accused of throwing alcohol in his then-girlfriend's face and throwing her on a bed when she tried leaving their apartment in 2007. In 2010, Bonsall, then 28, pleaded guilty to felony menacing and third degree assault after he attacked a friend with a broken stool. Bonsall has reportedly suffered from mental illness, as well as addictions to alcohol and painkillers, but after receiving treatment, he has stayed out of the news. 11. Tatum O'Neal Nickiswift Tatum O'Neal became the youngest Academy Award winner in history at just 10 years old for Paper Moon (1973), in which she starred opposite her father, Ryan O'Neal. According to her own 2004 memoir (via the Daily Beast), she suffered emotional and physical abuse from her father and began smoking marijuana two years after her Oscar win. Cocaine abuse, Quaaludes, and hard partying followed. Tatum claimed her dad abandoned her at 15 when he married actress Farrah Fawcett, and that by 16, she'd been molested by two men (one of whom she claimed was a good friend of Ryan's) and two women. Her father denied all of the allegations. By age 18, Tatum claimed she was using cocaine to stay thin, and in 1995, when her marriage to tennis pro John McEnroe collapsed, she got hooked on heroin. In June 2008, she was arrested for allegedly trying to buy crack cocaine in New York City. She later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to treatment. In 2015, Tatum penned a piece for Harper's Bazaar, discussing sobriety and her evolving sexual identity. "Now I've had a number of years of being present and clear, and that has changed everything in my life," she said. "It's changed my relationships with my children, my relationship with work, my relationships with people, my relationship with myself. Now I'm clean and aware and alive and interested in the world, saying, 'Dating women is exciting to me, and this is turning me on.'" 12. Jeremy Jackson Nickiswift Baywatch (1989-2001) star Jeremy Jackson played surfer kid Hobie Buchannon on the series from 1991 to 1999. He was 9 years old when he started working on the show, but says he left to cope with an addiction to methamphetamines, ecstasy, marijuana, and GHB. In 2011, he appeared on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew to recover from an addiction to steroids. In early 2015, he was accused of allegedly trying to murder his then-wife, fitness model Loni Willison, and he was booted from Celebrity Big Brother for allegedly groping a co-star in a drunken stupor and exposing her breasts. In April 2015, Jackson was accused of allegedly stabbing a man at a party, but no charges were filed. Six months later, he was accused of allegedly stabbing a woman multiple times. Upon his release from jail in October 2015, he went to rehab. 13. Edward Furlong Nickiswift Edward Furlong got his big break as the young John Connor in Terminator 2 (1991), but within a decade, he was already in big trouble. He was hospitalized for a suspected drug overdose in April 2001, and five months later got busted for driving without a license and driving under the influence in two separate stops within four hours. That led to the first in a series of rehab stints. In 2004, Furlong was arrested and booked for misdemeanor public intoxication in Kentucky after taking lobsters out of a store display case, perhaps in order to "liberate" them. Furlong married The Ring (2002) actress Rachael Bella and welcomed a son in 2006, but their marriage crumbled just three years later when Bella filed for divorce. A series of disturbing court appearances and multiple restraining orders followed. In January 2011, Furlong was even put behind bars for violating Bella's restraining order. In 2012, he was accused of exposing his then-6-year-old son to cocaine. The couple's divorce was reportedly not finalized until 2014, but by 2013, he'd already faced legal trouble with another woman. Furlong was sentenced to five years of probation, 90 days of rehab, and a year of domestic violence counseling after he allegedly attacked an ex-girlfriend and broke her laptop. In October 2016, Furlong was spotted looking "bloated and unkempt" with actress Monica Keena, with whom he'd had a volatile relationship involving multiple domestic abuse charges for years, reported the Daily Mail. 14. Harvey Spencer Stephens Nickiswift Harvey Spencer Stephens, who starred as Damien in the original version of The Omen (1976), took longer than his onscreen counterpart to show his dark side. It wasn't until August 2016 that he went bad during a reported road rage incident. Stephens allegedly cut off two bicyclists, then violently attacked them, knocking one of them unconscious. He was charged with two counts of actual bodily harm and one charge of criminal damage. On Friday, Jan. 13, 2017 (spooky!) he was sentenced to a year in jail for the bodily harm charge, plus two months for the criminal damage charge. Credits: Nickiswift