Celebrities Are Sharing What Being A Child Star Really Takes

"My whole childhood and adolescence were very exploited. It still gives my nervous system a reaction to say it. There were cases where people had the best intentions and maybe didn't know what they were doing. And also cases where they did — they knew exactly what they were doing." — Selena Gomez

The ethics of child acting have always been a contested subject, and even more so in recent years. While some young stars are surrounded by a positive support system, many are not properly protected.

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Many stars have spoken out about their experience with fame at a young age, and most recently Jennette McCurdy has shared her time as a child celebrity. In her new book, I'm Glad My Mom Died, she explains what it was like being an actor since she was eight years old, as well as her difficult relationship with her mother. 

Below, in their own words, these stars shine a light on an industry in need of much more oversight.

1. Jennette McCurdy

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In her book I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jenette McCurdy spoke about her mother, saying, "My mother emotionally, physically, and mentally abused me in ways that will forever impact me. [...] She wanted this. And I wanted her to have it. I wanted her to be happy. But now that I have it, I realize that she's happy and I'm not. Her happiness came at the cost of mine. I feel robbed and exploited." 

After Jenette's book came out, her former costar, Miranda Cosgrove, reacted in the New York Times: "When you're young, you're so in your own head. You can't imagine that people around you are having much harder struggles. You don't expect things like that from the person in the room who's making everyone laugh."

2. Beyoncé

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Beyoncé spoke to Harper's Bazaar about competing as a young Black girl: "I was competing in dance and singing competitions at age seven. When I was on the stage, I felt safe. I was often the only Black girl, and it was then that I started to realize I had to dance and sing twice as hard. I had to have stage presence, wit, and charm if I wanted to win."

3. Daniel Radcliffe

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While Radcliffe has stated that he had incredibly supportive parents and that his time on the sets of Harry Potter were wonderful, facing "real life" once shooting wrapped sent him into alcoholism, as he told Marc Maron on the WTF podcast:

"There was definitely a time when I was coming out of 'Potter' and I was into the real world, suddenly I was in a world where I'm not going to have that consistency anymore. I'm not going to see all those people every year. I'm not going to have my friends around me all the time. [...] I drank a lot but that was more to do with going out in public and having a battle in me to be like 'No, I can have a totally normal life.'"

4. Drew Barrymore

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When asked whether she felt exploited by her parents, Drew Barrymore said to The Guardian: "Noooo. I mean, well, yeah, I think with my mother it was definitely too out there. But my dad, no, he was just unavailable."

As a teenager, Barrymore's mother put her in an institution for the mentally ill. While Barrymore does not resent her time in the institution (it was they who helped her become emancipated from her mother), she did find it hard to get work after she left:

"To have such a big career at such a young age, then nothing for years — people going, you're an unemployable disaster — that's a tough trip to have by the time you're 14. To have access to so many things, then to nothing."

5. Aaron Carter

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On his parents' handling of his money, Carter revealed on Oprah: "I made over $200 million in my career before I even turned 18 years old. We had this massive compound, with, like, 12 houses on it. It was worth over $10 million, and I had paid a lot of that money. I had done a lot of that stuff, and I never got any of those returns back or anything like that. Even at this point, I've never even owned my own home. There was a lot of neglect on my parents' part. They didn't do a lot of things right."

6. Miley Cyrus

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On CBS Sunday Morning, Miley Cyrus opened up about the difficulties of juggling the persona of Hannah Montana with what is already the dual-life of being a celebrity: "What was hard for me was balancing everything. I think it got harder when I started touring as both Hannah Montana and as myself. [...] I think that's probably what's a little bit wrong with me now. I mark that up as doing some extreme damage in my psyche as an adult person. [...] America feels like my aunt. 'You know you've grown up so much and we don't wanna see you grow up!'

7. Raven-Symoné

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On an episode of The View, Raven-Symoné opened up about being body shamed as a child: "It was definitely hard. I remember not being able to have the bagel or anything at – we would call it crafty, where it's just a table of food, ready for you to eat whatever you want. And I remember people would be like, 'You can’t eat that. You're getting fat!’ I’m like, ‘I’m 7! I’m hungry!'"'

Raven-Symoné also related: "[They said] I was too big to be doing an hour and a half concert. 'I don't know how she can dance being that big.' And I was like, 'I still did it!' I was on tour forever because it’s not about your size, it’s about what you have to say, if you can sing or dance, and performing. It's not about your size. I love embracing your body. In this day and age you have all kinds, and it’s funny, it’s serious, it’s every color, it’s every head shape, it’s every hair. And there’s androgyny, and there’s LGBT coming in, and it feels good. We didn’t have it enough last time and I guess that’s what the past is for — to make sure the present is what it needs to be. The world is too big to have one sort of view to show beauty, because then you are literally destroying society. You are literally destroying it. And then you want to talk about how we are judgmental to each other and this and this. But it’s being created in the industry that we’re in. So why not break the mold?"

8. Macaulay Culkin

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Like Daniel Radcliffe, Culkin also opened up on an episode of WTF with Marc Maron. The Home Alone star's father would tell Macaulay, "Do good or I’ll hit you."

Culkin also revealed on the episode: "My father was such a crazy person that I had to do [a] whole episode [of Saturday Night Live] without cue cards. That meant that every other person in the cast couldn’t use cue cards, either. That’s insane. That’s completely insane."

He went on to say: "After I did Richie Rich in ’93 or ’94, my father and mother called it quits, which is one of the best things to ever happen to me. I was able to walk away from the business. I was able to say, 'I hope you made all your money, because there’s no more coming from me.' "He was a bad man. He was abusive. Physically and mentally. He was just a bad dude. A bad abusive man. He was a piece of work."

9. Ariel Winter

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In an in-depth interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Steven Levitan (co-creator of Modern Family) said about Ariel Winter and her mother: "I would order a couple lunches in my name so Ariel could eat one of them. I could tell she was hungry. Boiled chicken and cucumbers isn’t going to do it for a growing kid. Her mother kept her out late at night at these ridiculous parties. She was 12 and 13 years old and had to be on set at 6:30, 7."

Ariel Winter went through puberty just like every other teen, except she was simultaneously starring in one of the nation's most-watched shows. Her chest was occasionally strapped down and she was dressed in baggy clothes. While Winter partially understands this decision due to her character's personality, she feels "very torn."

She talked to The Hollywood Reporter about being objectified by the age of 11: "The first season I was very thin, no breasts, no hips. The next year, I had huge boobs and a butt. It was automatically 'You’re a fat slut.' 'You're a whore.'"

10. Rivkah Reyes

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Rivkah Reyes, who played Katie the bass player in School of Rock, shared with the New York Post what life was like after the movie was a hit. "Especially after production wrapped, when I first came back to school, people were really nice or really mean. There was no middle ground. I was literally followed around the school with people chanting 'School of Rock.'"

In a piece they wrote called "Confessions of an Obsolete Child Actor," Reyes said: "From the age of 14, I used drugs, alcohol, sex, food, and self-harm to numb all of this pain. I’ve survived dozens of toxic relationships and three suicide attempts. I’m not saying all of this is because I played bass in a movie when I was a kid but because I spent over a decade terrified that I’d peaked at 10 years old."

They went on to say: "On message boards (what a time 2003 was), grown men would sexualize me, commenting, 'The bassist is going to grow up to be hot' and 'Can’t wait 'til she's 18.'"

11. Shirley Temple

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In an interview on the The Diane Rehm Show, Shirley Temple stated about her parents: "They bathed me in love my whole life. My mother was, I think, the most wonderful mother that a girl could have."

While it's good to hear that Shirley Temple had such fond memories of her mother in the above 1988 interview, she was still subjected to an industry that treated her as less than human. When she was just 12 years old, an MGM producer exposed himself to her. On sets she also faced sexualization and horrid working conditions.

In his book The Cultural Turn in U. S. History: Past, Present, and Future, author and historian John Kassan details what the working conditions of Baby Burlesks (Temple's debut film) were like: "To threaten and punish uncooperative child actors, the director, Charles Lamont, kept a soundproof black box, six feet on each side, containing a block of ice. An offending child was locked within this dark, cramped interior and either stood uncomfortably in the cold, humid air or had to sit on the ice. Those who told their parents about this torture were threatened with further punishment."

Moreover, Baby Burlesks (as in, "baby burlesques") sexualizes its child stars throughout the film. Shirley Temple went on to call it a "a cynical exploitation of our childish innocence that occasionally were racist or sexist."

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12. Selena Gomez

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Gomez told Business of Fashion: "My whole childhood and adolescence were very exploited. It still gives my nervous system a reaction to say it. There were cases where people had the best intentions and maybe didn't know what they were doing. And also cases where they did — they knew exactly what they were doing."

She also said: "I remember just feeling really violated when I was younger, even just being on the beach. I was maybe 15 or 16 and people were taking pictures, photographers. I felt very violated and I didn't like it or understand it, and that felt very weird, because I was a young girl and they were grown men. I didn't like that feeling."

13. Regina King

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Regina King talked to People magazine about her mother keeping her in public school as she rose to fame: "It was instrumental in me becoming a person who can find balance on shaky ground. It's not an easy thing, living your life on display, and it's particularly hard when you're young. But participating in those social situations as a teen gave me an understanding to how different people can be, which has been very helpful when navigating Hollywood."

14. Kirsten Dunst

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Kirsten Dunst explained what it was like for her to balance life and work for so long with Reuters: "It's hard to be a child actress and make sure it's balanced with school and friends and all that stuff. And I always had that, so I got lucky with growing up in that way. But there’s a point with any job you do, if you do it that long, where you question whether it is you want to continue doing that."

15. Mara Wilson

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In a piece she wrote for The New York Times, Matilda star Mara Wilson said: "People had been asking me, 'Do you have a boyfriend?' in interviews since I was 6. Reporters asked me who I thought the sexiest actor was and about Hugh Grant's arrest for soliciting a prostitute. It was cute when 10-year-olds sent me letters saying they were in love with me. It was not when 50-year-old men did. Before I even turned 12, there were images of me on foot fetish websites and photoshopped into child pornography. Every time, I felt ashamed. Hollywood has resolved to tackle harassment in the industry, but I was never sexually harassed on a film set. My sexual harassment always came at the hands of the media and the public."

16. Natalie Portman

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In an episode of the podcast Armchair Expert, Portman related: "Being sexualized as a child took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid. When I was in my teens I was like, 'I don't wanna have any love scenes or make-out scenes.' I would start choosing parts that were less sexy because it made me worried about the way I was perceived and how safe I felt. 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.' But at that age, you do have your own sexuality, and you do have your own desire. You do want to explore things, and you do want to be open."

17. Amanda Bynes

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Amanda Bynes has been in an almost nine-year-long conservatorship under her mother. She has been working hard to reclaim her health as the conservatorship ends. At the height of her fame, she was plagued with high beauty standards:

Chelsea Brummet, Bynes' All That costar, talked about the pressures of looks for the teen star: "[She] was always self-conscious. On red carpets, if there was Lindsay Lohan or someone else, she would always look at herself and fix her hair. You could just tell she was self-conscious once her career started not being so great. I don’t think she liked not being in the spotlight and not being number one. I think she became so addicted to it, it became a lifestyle."

Amanda Bynes tells People that she is now focusing on her own wellbeing: "Following today's decision by the judge to terminate my conservatorship, I would like to thank my fans for their love and well wishes during this time. I would also like to thank my lawyer and my parents for their support over the last nine years. In the last several years, I have been working hard to improve my health so that I can live and work independently, and I will continue to prioritize my well-being in this next chapter."

18. Lindsay Lohan

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When Oprah called Lindsay Lohan a 'child star gone wrong' in their interview, Lohan said: "I hate that label and that title. That's not what I ever aspired to be."

Elaborating on her journey, Lohan told Oprah: "When I moved to LA after filming Mean Girls, I was 17 or 18. I was around people so I wasn't lonely, and I didn't pay close enough attention to people being around for the wrong reasons. I was making too much. I wasted so much money; I was living at a hotel, and I had an apartment. I wasn't really being guided. I didn't think about it, and I didn't listen to my family when they told me, 'Come back to New York.'"

19. Hilary Duff

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Hilary Duff talked to Cosmopolitan about whether she has any regrets on her childhood fame: "I wouldn’t do it all exactly the same, but I can’t look at my life and be like, 'I wish this was different,' because I don’t know if it would get me to where I am right now. I wish I had a little bit of a better education. I wish I had a little bit of a college experience. But what would that look like? The thing that I crave out of it wouldn’t look the way I pictured it because of who I am and how I came up. I feel smart, but there are certain things that people talk about where it literally isn’t in my brain because I didn’t experience it. I learned other things that people don’t have a clue about. But I don’t sit and harp on that."

Which other child stars have spoken out about their experiences?