It seems to be a story that constantly repeats itself over and over throughout the years, but there’s no doubt that some children who become stars in the entertainment industry have to battle all kinds of demons…including the difficulties put upon them by their own parents.
Some of them come out of their experiences stronger and sadly, some succumb to the difficult years they had to endure when they were too young to know any better and end up as lessons for other kid stars.
Here are five child stars who opened up about the mistreatment they had to deal with from their own parents.
Taylor Momsen
The former star of Gossip Girl said that her parents signed her up for the Ford Modeling Agency when she was only two-years-old.
Momsen said, “No 2-year-old wants to be working, but I had no choice. My whole life, I was in and out of school. I didn’t have friends. I was working constantly and I didn’t have a real life.”
Sounds like a pretty sad childhood to me…
Gary Coleman
Coleman became a household name when he starred in the sitcom Diff’rent Strokes in the 1970s and ’80s.
Coleman sued his parents in 1989 when he was 21-years-old for mishandling the millions of dollars he made on television. He was awarded $1.3 million but he had to file for bankruptcy in 1999 after his legal fees, bad investments, and medical bills piled up.
Coleman passed away in 2010 at the age of 42.
Brooke Shields
Shields became a star at a young age and her mother came under fire for letting her appear as a child s** worker in the film Pretty Baby when she was only 12-years-old.
But Shields defended her mother and said, “I was such a naïve, innocent child. I wasn’t Lolita. I didn’t have that precocious understanding of my s**uality.”
But she did say, “In this environment and with social media and with the dangers on that level and just being a mom now, looking at my 11-year-old, I would not facilitate it.”
Judy Garland
Garland entered show business as a young girl when she sang and danced before movies in the theater that her father owned.
When the Garland family moved to California when she was 4-years-old, things took a drastic turn. The actress said, “From the day we arrived in Lancaster, all the wonderful carefree fun and joy in my family began to vanish. Suddenly mother decided we had to be stars. She started to drag us to anyplace someone important might see us.”
The Wizard of Oz star said, “The only time I felt wanted when I was a kid was when I was performing.”
Macaulay Culkin
The biggest child star of the 1990s may have seemed happy on the big screen, but Macaulay Culkin’s father was controlling and the boy had a busy filming schedule when he was still very young.
Culkin said he thinks his father was jealous of him because “everything he tried to do in his life I excelled at before I was 10 years old.”
He stopped acting in 1994 at the age of 14 and told his parents, “I’m done, guys — hope you all made your money because there is no more coming from me.”
Culkin had a court battle with his parents over $17 million he had earned and he’s been estranged from his father for many years.
