Coming from a wealthy background often makes it easier for people to "make it" in the entertainment industry because they have a built-in financial safety net. However, creatives without a trust fund have to find other ways to support themselves. Oftentimes, they'll work in the service industry, retail, etc., but sometimes, they borrow money to help keep themselves — or their passion project — afloat.
Here are 11 celebs who borrowed money from friends, family, and other celebs:
1. On CBS Sunday Morning, Margot Robbie said, "[My mother would] take money out of the house mortgage and lend me money, so I always knew, 'Oh, I've got to pay that back.' I have that piece of paper still. I kept it. Everything I owed my mom, I had it written down."
She also said, "One day, when I made enough money, I just paid that whole mortgage off completely. I was like, 'Mom, don't even worry about that mortgage anymore. It doesn't even exist anymore.'...Honestly, anyone in my position, you'd do that for your mom. Of course you would."
On The Pivot podcast, Omari said, "I think he forever just really really respects the shit out of me for that, we just not taught that in our community. Barely do we pay anybody back...So once we’re hit up for money, and I am financially obviously stable at this point, once we’re hit up for money we don’t expect it back...So for me to give it back to 50 with interest, I was just so proud to be able to do that. And it was early! He felt like, ‘Damn, you can’t be messed up, you need money!'"
3. After selling off everything he owned to pay off his taxes, Will Smith "borrowed $10,000 from a friend of [his] who was a purveyor of neighborhood pharmaceuticals...[and] moved to Los Angeles."
In conversation with Idris Elba, he also said, "I knew whatever my new life was going to be, I could feel it was going to be in Los Angeles."
4. Robert Townsend's directorial debut Hollywood Shuffle had a $100,000 budget, which he self-funded. He had $60,000 in savings from previous acting jobs, but once that money ran out, he put the remaining $40,000 on his credit cards.
He told the LA Times, "And I was going through the mail, and it was applications for credit cards — Visa, Preferred Visa, MasterCard, Chevron, Shell. And that's when I said, 'I'll finish it with credit cards.' It's just the entrepreneurial spirit where you just go, 'OK, I can charge this, I can charge that, everybody takes credit cards.' ...And I didn't tell anybody what I was doing. Nobody really knew because I didn't want people to go like, 'You're doing what?' I was just quiet and like, 'OK, I can figure this out.' And then we finished the last pieces of the movie. And I just remember people would come in like, 'Rob, when we going to shoot again?' and I was still waiting on this one Visa in the mail, and I was like, 'I'm still rewriting.'"
5. When Pedro Pascal moved back to New York in 2000, he went on a lot of auditions without booking jobs, so his longtime close friend Sarah Paulson would share the money she earned from her acting gigs.
Sarah told Esquire, "He’s talked about this publicly, but there were times when I would give him my per diem from a job I was working on so that he could have money to feed himself."
6. To fund her web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, Issa Rae maxed out all of her credit cards, totalling about $10,000. She also had support from her fans, who raised $50,000 during the show's first season.
She told Money.com, "There were definitely moments of despair. Just thinking, 'Will I ever get out of this hole? Will I ever make enough money to get out of debt?'...I got completely out of debt the second season of Awkward Black Girl. It was the second time I was able to be debt free. The first time an aunt had passed, and bless her heart, she had left us an inheritance. I used that money to get myself out of debt, and made a vow to myself to never be crippled by debt ever again. So when I ran up a few cards again, I was devastated. This time I knew it was for real."
7. In 2013, George Clooney gathered 14 of his closest friends and gave them each $1 million in cash in a suitcase to repay them for all the times they'd helped him out. He told GQ, "I was a single guy. All of us were aging. I was 52 or something. And most of my friends are older than me...And I thought, what I do have are these guys who've all, over a period of 35 years, helped me in one way or another. I've slept on their couches when I was broke. They loaned me money when I was broke. They helped me when I needed help over the years."
He continued, "And I've helped them over the years. We're all good friends. And I thought, you know, without them, I don't have any of this. And we're all really close, and I just thought basically if I get hit by a bus, they're all in the will. So why the fuck am I waiting to get hit by a bus?"
8. Early in her career, Tiffany Haddish lived out of her car, parking it in Beverly Hills to sleep. When fellow comedian Kevin Hart noticed, he gave her $300 to get a motel room for the week. She told Vanity Fair, "I was like, 'I don’t know where you can get a room for a week in Los Angeles for $300, that’s impossible.' But I got me a motel room, and he told me to write out a list of goals and start doing something every day toward those goals."
Kevin continued lifting Tiffany up professionally. She said, "He gave me a job on Real Husbands of Hollywood, and I kept trying to give him his $300 back. He’s like, 'I don’t want that money. You keep that money. If I need you to be in something else, you just make sure you can do it.' Then, when I got Night School and we were working on it, I tried to give him the money back again. He’s like, 'I don’t want your money. Just know your lines and be good in this damn movie.'"
On the set of Night School, she finally paid him back by tossing cash at him on set.
9. Kevin Costner self-funded Horizon by mortaging "10 acres on the water in Santa Barbara where [he] was going to build [his] last house."
He told Deadline, "But I did it without a thought. It has thrown my accountant into a fucking conniption fit. But it’s my life, and I believe in the idea and the story."
10. After studios declined to buy Clerks, Kevin Smith reportedly funded the $27,575 budget production by selling his comic book collection, borrowing money from family and friends, and maxing out eight to ten credit cards.
It paid off, as the film reportedly made $4.4 million at the box office.
11. And finally, at the start of their careers, longtime best friends Ben Affleck and Matt Damon put their savings in a shared bank account because they "needed the money for auditions." During a joint interview on The Bill Simmons Podcast, Ben said, "We were going to help each other and be there for each other. It was like, ‘You’re not going to be alone. I’m not going to be alone. Let’s go out there and do this together.’”
Matt explained that any money they earned from early roles went into their joint account. He said, "As long as one of us had money, we knew the power wasn’t going to get shut off. After doing [1993's] Geronimo, I probably had 35 grand in the bank. I was like, we’re good for a year."