Yes, Ryan Gosling Really Did Get Suspended From School For Throwing Steak Knives At His Classmates — Here’s A Breakdown Of His Seriously Wild Childhood
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
It is a pretty well-known fact that when Ryan Gosling was a child, he was on The Mickey Mouse Club with the likes of Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera.
Ryan was just 12 years old when he attended an open audition in Montreal for the Disney Channel show, and was a Mouseketeer up until the show’s cancellation in 1995.
The series was filmed in Florida, and Ryan previously revealed that while most of the other child stars lived in the same apartment complex, he and his mom lived in a trailer park because the complex was “too expensive” for them.
During his second year as a Mouseketeer, Ryan moved in with Justin after Justin’s mom became his legal guardian because his own mom had to return to Canada for work reasons.
After The Mickey Mouse Club, Ryan also returned to Canada, where he secured small roles in other shows, such as Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Goosebumps.
The rest, as you probably know, is history, with Ryan ultimately reaching global fame in 2004 thanks to his breakout role in The Notebook.
But there is much more to Ryan’s upbringing than meets the eye. For example, his family is Mormon, and religion was a huge part of his life growing up.
In a 2007 interview with the Guardian, he said, “We were brought up pretty religious. My mother admits it. She says, ‘You were raised by a religious zealot.’ She's different now, but at the time, it was a part of everything — what they ate, how they thought…”
And then, last week, an excerpt from Ryan’s Wikipedia page shed even more light on the star when it went viral on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The screenshot passage details some lesser-known facts about the Hollywood actor’s childhood: “[Ryan] ‘hated’ being a child, was bullied in elementary school, and had no friends until he was ‘14 or 15.’”
what the hell was Ryan Gosling's childhood pic.twitter.com/FN37m1OlrZ
— Reconstructionist (@un_a_valeable) January 16, 2024
en.wikipedia.org / Via Twitter: @un_a_valeable
“In grade one, having been heavily influenced by the action film First Blood, he took steak knives to school and threw them at other children during recess,” it continues. “This incident led to a suspension. He was unable to read.”
Sharing the excerpt, one X user wrote, “What the hell was Ryan Gosling's childhood,” and the tweet quickly went viral — racking up tens of thousands of likes and retweets as other users reacted to the post.
“imagine being his classmate thinking he was just some loner loser and one day he fucking brings knives to school and throws them at people... only for him to turn out to be ryan gosling,” somebody wrote.
imagine being his classmate thinking he was just some loner loser and one day he fucking brings knives to school and throws them at people... only for him to turn out to be ryan gosling 😭 https://t.co/SzvcvXxmYe
— gemma (@thwalkingcorpse) January 17, 2024
en.wikipedia.org / Via Twitter: @thwalkingcorpse
“I feel like the ‘Rambo fixation that includes throwing knives at other kids’ and ‘has no friends’ might be related,” another joked. One more tweeted, “the ‘he was unable to read’ on top of everything 😭.”
And while Wikipedia is sometimes guilty of publishing incorrect information, that is actually not the case with Ryan.
In fact, it was Ryan himself who shared the steak knives story more than a decade ago.
In a 2011 interview with Company magazine, Ryan said that after watching the 1982 movie First Blood for the first time, he convinced himself that he really was Sylvester Stallone’s infamous character, John Rambo.
Reflecting on his childhood, Ryan told the publication, “I wanted to be Billy Idol for a long time. I also wanted to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I really wanted to be Sylvester Stallone.
“When I first saw Rambo, that movie put a kind of spell on me and I actually thought I was Rambo,” he continued. "So much so that one day, I took a bunch of steak knives to school and threw them around at recess time because I thought we were in the movie.”
Ryan concluded, “I’m not proud of this, but I did learn a lesson — I was suspended from school and my mother said I couldn’t watch R-rated movies anymore.”
Ryan also told the National Post this anecdote that same year, adding that he was in grade one at the time — which means he was 6 or 7 years old. Ryan recalled filling up his Fisher-Price magic kit box with the knives to take to school.
“I was suspended,” Ryan said. “And my parents were terrified. They thought, We can’t let him watch movies that are too violent.”
As a result, Ryan could only rent “Bible movies and nature movies” from the public library until his early teens.
As for the other parts of Ryan’s viral Wikipedia bio, it is also true that the Hollywood star “hated” being a child.
He told the Guardian, “I hated being a kid. I didn't like being told what to do, I didn't like my body, I didn't like any of it. Being a kid and playing and all that stuff just drove me nuts.”
In a separate interview with the same publication, Ryan also confirmed that he couldn’t read until the age of 10 and that he “didn’t really have any friends” as a child — getting his first friend at 15 years old.
Ryan Gosling Just Revealed That He Won't Let His Barbie-Obsessed Daughters Watch “Barbie,” Even Though They’re The Reason He Accepted The Role Of Ken In The First PlaceStephanie Soteriou · Jan. 17, 2024
Ryan Gosling's Shocked Reaction To Actually Winning An Award For "Barbie" Is Going ViralMatt Stopera · Jan. 15, 2024
Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes hold hands while leaving a venue vs Ryan Gosling gives a speech Ryan Gosling Made Rare Comments About Eva Mendes, And I'm Obsessed With How He Talked About HerChelsea Stewart · Jan. 14, 2024
Dan Levy in "Schitt's Creek" 14 Mind-Blowing Facts About Celebrities That I Just Learned For The First Time This WeekKayla Yandoli · Aug. 20, 2023
