19 Child Stars Whose Parents Chose That Life For Them
See the words "child star" and I'm sure someone immediately springs to mind for you. Sparkly-eyed and smiley, it seems like they were born for the stage. But how many of these mini-mega stars actually enjoyed the path their parents forced them onto from the second they arrived Earth-side, and how many would never have chosen the route for themselves?
Content warning: This post contains mentions of child abuse and sexual exploitation
1.Janet Jackson
Joe Jackson, the Jackson patriarch, groomed his kids for international stardom from the second they were born. Known for ruling the family with an iron fist, his kids were seen as a means to a steady income instead of children who wanted to live normal, happy childhoods.
It's even said that Joe told his kids to called him Joe, not Dad, to ensure a business relationship was maintained at all times.
While the family was very musical, even having a studio at their house, Janet only wanted to act. When her father found a song she'd made, he told her she should become a singer, but she said: "'No, no, no, no, no! You don’t understand. I want to go to school. I want to go to college and study business law and support myself by acting.'"
From there, her career was controlled by Joe, from her music to her acting jobs to her image.
He insisted she star in the TV show Fame to appeal to a wider audience, which she admitted in her 2022 documentary she wanted nothing to do with.
She said: "I didn’t want to be on Fame; I didn’t want to do the show. The kids were great. I just didn’t want to do that. I did it for my father."
So while Janet did want the path she landed on, the stops she made along the way don't seem to have been ones of her own choosing.
2.Jennette McCurdy
Jennette is getting a lot of attention these days due to her best-selling book, I'm Glad My Mom Died. In it, Jennette explains her complicated relationship with her abusive mother Debbie, who had Jennette acting from age six in a bid to live out her own dream of being a performer.
Jennette became the main breadwinner of the family, but never liked being in the spotlight. She continued acting in an attempt to win her mom's approval, but eventually confessed to her mom that she didn't want to act anymore. Debbie's reaction was so hysterical that Jennette continued on the path she never wanted to be on in the first place.
In order to give Jennette the most chance of getting child actor roles as she grew older, Debbie forced diets on her daughter to keep her so underweight she could be mistaken for a child years younger. The ways of thinking Debbie instilled in her daughter caused a battle with anorexia that she still struggles with today.
Following her mom's death, Jennette has worked through her feelings with therapists to dissect the complicated nature of the relationship they shared, and has finally been able to untangle herself from the dreams her mom made her believe were hers. Now aged 30, Jennette has quit acting and plans to write or direct for the foreseeable.
3.Cole and Dylan Sprouse
Cole and Dylan were put into acting at just eight months old, as part of their mom Melanie's attempts to stabilize the family's finances after splitting with their dad, Matthew. Describing his mom as the "financially the most irresponsible woman ever," Cole explained that Melanie had spent all his and Dylan's earnings from before they joined The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, eventually losing custody of them when they were 10 years old.
While their dad originally wanted the twins to live normal lives after he won custody of them, the monetary benefits of their budding acting careers soon overtook his initial desire.
Cole said: "I think there’s two types of kids within the child acting business. There’s, like, the ‘thespian children’ who choose to do it, and then there’s the working class kids that, in our case at least…I mean it started, really, as a means to put bread on the table.”
Talking to the Call Her Daddy podcast about his feelings around being pushed into child acting, he said he didn't regret his childhood but definitely has some feelings to work through about it.
He said: "My brother and I were put into acting when we were eight months old by our mother because we needed money. I never made the decision to join the arts or acting specifically. And so it was never really my passion. To be honest, if she never thrust me into it, I probably never would have thought of it as a career choice for myself."
4.Taylor Momsen
Known these days as the frontwoman of the rock band The Pretty Reckless, Taylor was once most recognized for her portrayal of Jenny Humphrey in Gossip Girl.
During her time filming the show, rumors began to circulate that she was difficult to work with after guest star, Tim Gunn, called then-17-year-old Taylor a "diva," and said: "She was pathetic, she couldn't remember her lines, and she didn't even have that many. I thought to myself 'why are we all being held hostage by this brat?"
Taylor realized that acting wasn't something she actually wanted to do, telling Revolver: "My parents signed me up with Ford [Modeling] at the age of two. No two-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."
Speaking to Cosmopolitan at a later date, she said of her decision to quit acting: "When I realized I could actually make my decisions, it was a very strange feeling. It was like, if I don't have to do this thing that I don't enjoy doing anymore, or I don't know if I ever really did, then I'm not gonna do it anymore! Because this is my life, and I want to live it and enjoy it if I can."
5.Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
Mary-Kate and Ashley began acting at nine months old when their mom's casting agent friend snagged them a spot at the casting call for Full House. While the girls' parents didn't initially plan for them to act, their rising popularity meant they began getting the girls into more and more projects as they got older, and it wasn't long before Mary-Kate and Ashley were the ultimate It girls of the '90s and '00s.
“With what we were doing in business when we were younger, I don’t think it ever felt like we were actresses,” Mary-Kate told In Touch. “Because we spend so much more of our time not in front of the cameras, building a brand.”
Ashley agreed, saying: “I always looked at myself, even as a kid, as a business woman.”
While the twins said their parents did try to ensure they had a normal life as well, the girls were targeted by paparazzi, with Ashley being reduced to hysterical crying when they were photographed in bikinis as teenagers on vacation in Hawaii.
Mary-Kate said she wouldn't wish her childhood on anyone, and said she felt like a "monkey performer." In fact, their experiences with the obsessive media at the height of their fame nearly made younger sister Elizabeth give up acting.
She described the media as "abusive to (her) sisters", detailing how the paparazzi would follow Mary-Kate and Ashley to the extent that they almost got into car accidents, and said she "really didn't want to be in that industry."
It makes sense that the twins turned their attention to their passion: fashion. They quit acting and established two clothing lines, one called The Row and one called Elizabeth and James, named after their siblings as well as their desire to explore masculine and feminine trends.
They rarely give interviews these days, and seem happier living a creative life behind the scenes.
6.Macaulay Culkin
Macaulay's dad, Kit, was an aspiring actor, and when a stage manager neighbor was looking for child actors, it "got to a place of, like, 'Sure, you want kids? What gender? What age? Yeah, we got a bunch. Here, take this one," according to Macauley's brother Kieran.
Kit was said to be jealous of Macaulay's success and took out his anger mentally and physically on his children. He also used his power as the manager of one of the '90s biggest child stars to get his other children acting roles, even forcing directors to take them on for projects that they did not want them for.
As a teenager, his parents split up and Macaulay finally learned that he was worth a massive $50 million.
His dad had hidden all mention of money away from him, and when Macaulay found out, he emancipated himself and cut his father off. He quit acting shortly after and decided to go back to high school.
Macaulay has since dipped his toes back into the acting waters, this time on his own terms. He said he'd originally planned for his exit from acting to be permanent but had an epiphany after a few years.
He told Time: "When I stopped, I just thought it was over and I was never, ever going to do it again...I was just hoping to disappear off the face of the earth. It took me about six years to figure out you can't back out of this."
7.Brooke Shields
Brooke Shields' mom Teri is infamous for the projects she got her daughter involved in. Starting modeling at the tender age of 11 months, Brooke was photographed nude in a bathtub for Playboy magazine's presser Sugar and Spice by just 10 years old.
By 12, she was playing a child prostitute in the film Pretty Baby, in which she had to kiss a 29-year-old and appear naked in front of a room of people bidding to take her virginity.
At 14, she appeared in the infamous Blue Lagoon. Dubbed as "soft porn" by the Daily Mail, Brooke was topless with her hair glued to her breasts and constantly encouraged to pursue an off-screen relationship with her 18-year-old costar, Christopher Atkins.
Shortly after that, Brooke was cast in Endless Love, a story about high school students forbidden to see each other, which again featured a lot of nudity.
Brooke spoke out about how she believes the constant sexual exploitation from such a young age made it difficult to express or understand her own sexual identity, especially when the press dubbed her "America's most famous virgin" at age 22. She said: "I was such a naïve, innocent child. I wasn't Lolita. I didn't have that precocious understanding of my sexuality."
Describing her relationship with her mother as "enmeshed", Brooke explained that she didn't resent her mom for her actions as she believed they would have been "dirt poor" otherwise.
8.Ariel Winter
Ariel was forced into acting at age four by her mom, Crystal Workman. Ariel said that her mom "physically and emotionally abus(ed)" her, and her sister became her legal guardian when she was 14 years old.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, she said that living with her mom was a "really bad chapter," and that she "caught up on the childhood (she) didn't have" when she moved in with her sister. She also talked about how her mom made her wear skimpy clothing that led people to think she was double her age when she was just 12 years old, before tweeting that her then-estranged mom was "toxic" when Crystal publicly criticized her appearance to In Touch magazine.
Ariel tweeted: "What's sad is that you lie consistently. Also, why is it that you only choose to talk to me through the press? I'm doing just fine. 🚫 Toxic."
While Ariel was too young to have had much of a say at the start of her acting career, she does now enjoy the path she's found herself on.
She told Pulse Spikes that as a young child, she enjoyed pretending to be someone else, but as she got older and joined Modern Family, she began to appreciate the "actual work of acting" and the "in-depth character work."
She said: "I have been doing it for so long that I can’t really think of doing anything else.”
However, she's always craved a sense of normalcy and doesn't like being famous as a result of her profession.
Speaking about her experience living in LA, Ariel said: "I don't like pictures of me when I haven't signed up for pictures of me. I don't like feeling watched. I've always just wanted to live a very, very normal life, just have a normal existence."
This desire led Ariel to move away from LA with her boyfriend. She's still acting, but enjoying the balance of living further away and being able to live more freely.
9.Wil Wheaton
Perhaps most famous for his childhood role in the Stephen King classic, Stand By Me, Wil Wheaton revealed that acting wasn't a path he had chosen for himself.
Speaking to Yahoo! Entertainment, he said: "I didn’t want to be an actor when I was a kid. My parents forced me to do it, my mother made me do it. My mother coached me to go into her agency and tell the children’s agent, ‘I want to do what mommy does.”
Sadly, with the "combination of incredible emotional abuse from (his) father" and a lot of manipulation from his mother, his own experiences set him up well to play Gordie Lachance in his breakout role.
He said: "[It] put me in exactly the right place to play Gordie. Because Gordie’s experience very much reflected my experience. We’re both invisible in our homes. We both have a brother who is the golden child. We’re both the scapegoat in the family.
So when I watch Stand by Me now, I cannot ignore the unbelievable sadness in my eyes. And I cannot ignore the reality that it was that sadness, that isolation that I think gave me what Gordie needed to come to life and I think Rob Reiner saw that.”
These days, Wil focuses on writing and narrating audiobooks, but does still act here and there.
10.Christy Carlson Romano
Most well known for her role in the Disney Channel's Even Stevens, Christy said her mother tried to get all of her children into acting, but only she seemed to have a knack for it. It wasn't until she had children of her own that she realized how young she had been and how little control she'd had over her own life as a child actor.
She said parents should only seek out acting opportunities for their kids if it's an "organic" dream of their children — and she's not sure she was one of those kids.
She instead remembers desperately trying to please the adults around her, and feeling that she couldn't quit because she and her mom were "a team" and felt like she'd be "letting her down."
“When your whole life, you’re white-knuckling what the next chapter of your life is going to be...it’s just kind of a not fun existence,” she said. “That’s why people tell people not to act.”
These days, Christy is taking charge of her own story and what she appears in, running a YouTube channel that taps into that Disney nostalgia, shares her opinions and stories, interviews Disney Channel stars, and more.
11.Donny Osmond
Donny joined the Osmond Brothers at just five years old, and from there, his life was constant touring. He broke down in tears on a chat show a few years back when asked if he was angry at his father for pushing him into this way of life, and said he wished he'd stayed in Utah.
He told the Evening Standard a few days after this: "I was nine years old and on a six-week tour of Sweden with my father, playing three shows a day. I was so homesick. I wrote a letter to my mother, telling her to come and get me." His father was said to be less than impressed when he found out.
Donny detailed a time when he woke up after an operation to find a photographer from Tiger Beat magazine in the room.
"The photographer said: 'We need to get some pictures of you, Donny, look like you're in pain'. I complied. It was only years later that I thought: 'I'd had a major operation, I almost lost my life..."
He has since forgiven his father and did go on to tour solo, but struggled for a while to establish a career that had a wider appeal than just to the audience of teenage girls he was used to playing to.
12.Lindsay Lohan
Shooting to fame at age 12 in 1998's The Parent Trap, Lindsay quickly became a major teen star. But her path wasn't exactly one she chose for herself, and instead, was simply the next page to turn in her portfolio after starring in 60 commercials before she turned 11.
After Lindsay's hounding by the media and highly publicized struggles with drugs and alcohol in the spotlight over the years, mom Dina wasn't sure if she'd do it again. She told the New York Daily News: "My mother was an entertainer. It was natural. But yes, in the next life, I might not do it."
As for Lindsay, it seems she's one of the lucky few who liked the career assigned to them at birth.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter about her long-awaited return to acting, she said, "For me, my whole life, acting is like riding a bicycle. It’s just in me. It’s a part of me. Doing films, playing a character, it brings me so much joy to be able to share a story with people. To take people on that journey with me is such a blessing.”
13.Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar was discovered by an agent in a restaurant when she was four, and shortly afterward auditioned for a television film called An Invasion of Privacy.
From there, she starred in a controversial series of TV ads for Burger King that saw the then-five-year-old criticize McDonald's for having small burgers and claim to only eat at Burger King. The commercials were the first ads to directly name a competitor in their advertising, and McDonald's sure had beef with it! In retaliation, they not only sued Burger King but also Sarah herself.
Poor five-year-old Sarah was banned from eating at McDonald's, and sadly told the Sunday Express, "McDonald’s is where all your friends have their birthday parties, so I missed out on a lot of apple pie."
While her dad wasn't in the picture, Sarah has a good relationship with her mom, Rosellen. She once shared a throwback pic of the two of them, stating that "without her, none of this would have ever been possible." Many fans thanked Rosellen for encouraging Sarah in the comments.
But while Sarah herself enjoyed the path she'd ended up on, she has rules in place for her own daughter. Recalling the "industry abuses" she experienced as a teenager in Hollywood, she said she hoped she'd "set up a safety net for these actors that I didn't have," but that she and husband Freddie Prinze Jr. have "rules in place" that mean daughter Charlotte "can't be in front of a camera until she graduates high school."
Talking about Charlotte's goal, Sarah said: "I'll never stop her from being on a set. But she's just not going on camera while she's living under our roof. There'll be different expectations for her [as the daughter of famous parents], so she needs to learn everything there is first."
14.Kylie Jenner
Kylie was always used to her family being in the spotlight thanks to being the daughter of champion decathlete Caitlin Jenner, but usually watched from the sidelines.
It was only when she appeared in her family's show Keeping Up With The Kardashians at age 10 that things changed for Kylie. Thrust into the spotlight in her own right, Kylie's status skyrocketed.
Kylie said she realized her own influence around age 16, saying: "When I started dyeing my hair blue and cut my hair off, and then everyone started dyeing their hair blue and cutting it off. And I was like, 'Whoa.' I realized what an influence I had."
While things may have seemed pretty great for Kylie, she struggled with being in the spotlight from such a young age.
In 2016, she told her sister Kim in an episode of the show: "I feel like I've had anxiety for too long. I feel too much, I care too much, I read too much. Some people are born for this life and some people aren’t. I just know I’m not supposed to be famous.”
In a now-deleted Instagram post, she said:
"I’m proud of myself, my heart, and my strength. Growing up in the light with a million eyes on you just isn’t normal. I’ve lost friends along the way and I’ve lost myself too sometimes. My first tattoo was 'sanity' to remind myself everyday to keep it. I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole young adult life."
Shortly afterward, she told then-best friend, Jordyn Woods, that people like her sister Kendall, Bella Hadid, and Hayley Bieber were "made for (fame)" and "look so good every day", but she doesn't "want (her) picture taken, and (doesn't) want people to see what outfit (she's) wearing."
She continued: "Every time there's paparazzi, I cover my face. I would rather wear this hoodie and Heelys and sweats every day. The only reason why I keep it up a little bit is because of Kylie Cosmetics but it's so much pressure."
She is mostly content with her life, but struggles with anxiety when attending events and desires more privacy. She told E! News, "I know I don't want to be famous forever. There's gonna be a time where I feel comfortable, I'm at a good place in my life, and I just stop."
15.Natalie Wood
The late Natalie Wood was forced into acting by her mother, Maria, who missed her chance to become a performer and instead focussed her efforts on pushing her daughters to stardom.
While young Natalie had a natural talent for performing, it seemed that her reason for going to movie sets was more to please her mother than to quench any desire of her own.
Her older sister Olga denies their mother's claims that Natalie had any interest in acting, saying: "Four-year-old Natasha (Natalie's childhood nickname) was a natural when she performed, but she was not movie-struck. Maria was the one stalking movie crews, seeking parts for herself and Natasha; Natasha just went along."
16.Hilary Duff
Hilary and her sister Hailie were enrolled in acting, singing, and ballet classes from a young age by their mom, Susan. While performing Cecchetti ballet with her sister at age six, Hilary decided she wanted to act.
It wasn't long before she was cast as Wendy in Casper Meets Wendy, and the rest is history! Hilary has spoken out about being a child star though, admitting she's still glad that this is the path she's ended up on, but does wonder about things she missed out on.
She told Teen Vogue: "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.
“It's weird to say ‘who I am to others,’ but it would be hard to erase that element to have a normal experience." Hilary continued.
“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.”
17.Judy Garland
Hailing from a family of performers, Judy began singing and dancing with her sisters at the ripe age of two.
After moving to Lancaster, California, Judy 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."
Judy's mother was abusive, keeping her on a diet of amphetamines and sleeping pills and monitoring her food intake from the age of 10. Judy said "the only time (she) felt wanted when (she) was a kid was when (she) was performing".
Her mother was so obsessed with Judy's stardom that she even ordered her to have an abortion when she fell pregnant at age 19, all in an attempt to keep her child-like image.
Talking about her life in Hollywood, Judy said: "Do you know how difficult it is to be Judy Garland? And for me to live with me? I've had to do it — and what more unkind life can you think of than the one I've lived?"
18.Drew Barrymore
Drew was born into a family of actors, appearing in her first movie aged just three years old. She had regular work until her breakout role in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial when she was six years old, which catapulted her to fame.
A young child in a very adult world, Drew's mother took her to clubs and allowed her access to drugs and alcohol, ultimately leading to her institutionalization at the age of 13, and emancipating herself at 14.
Drew described fame at such a young age as "a recipe for disaster."
However, she followed up, saying: "But you know what's exciting? I got my shit over with by, like, 14! Like, midlife crisis, you know: institutionalized, blacklisted, no family, like, got it done — and then got into the cycle of being my own parent."
While Drew has been back in the acting world, when asked about whether she thought her daughters following in her professional footsteps was a good idea, she said: "I was thinking, ‘My daughters will never be actors! God, no!’ And then I’m, like, wait, it’s a great family trade. I’m a Barrymore. My family has been doing this for hundreds and hundreds of years, and multiple generations.”
She continued: "Olive knows that I would prefer she wait until she’s 18, and then it’s really her life and her decision. I think there’s a way to give them a normal childhood that’s totally protected, and yet feed their love of how much they love to express themselves. And when they were first born, I just didn’t know how to rationalize it. Now, I do.”
19.Kirsten Dunst
Kirsten Dunst is a staple in Hollywood. Beginning her career aged three, she hit the big time at age 12 following Interview With The Vampire.
However, she never had any desire to act. She said: "My mother told me that when I was born she just knew that I was destined to be an actress. It’s not a natural way to grow up, and acting was never a dream for me. It was the only thing I knew — it was just my life. For a while, there was a time when I had a lot of anger towards my mother because of what she did to me."
Talking about her desires for her own children, she said: "I’d never put any daughter of mine through acting because, while I loved acting and was happy working as a child, looking back, my happiness always came from pleasing other people — always. It came from satisfying the director or my mother or my acting coach, not from pleasing myself."
Ultimately, while Kirsten still struggles with her fame, she believes her mother had the "best intentions," saying: "It's the way I grew up and I wouldn't change it. I have my stuff to work out, but so does my girlfriend who went to high school, went to college, and had a different life from mine. I don't think anybody can sit around and say: 'My life is more screwed up than yours.' Everybody has their issues."
