17 Former Child Stars Who've Opened Up About Their Shocking And Heartbreaking Experiences In Hollywood

This post deals with topics of sexual assault and the sexualization of minors. 

1. Brooke Shields discussed making the film The Blue Lagoon when she was 14 years old. In the movie, she appears fully nude and she now feels that director Randal Kleiser "wanted to sell [her] actual sexual awakening."

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"They wanted to make it a reality show," she said in her recent documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields. "They wanted to sell my actual sexual awakening. The irony was, I wasn’t in touch with any of my own sexuality."

Brooke has also gone on to say that during her time as a child star she never felt like her male directors looked out for her, and often depicted her as an underage sex object. "It never was about me, it was never protective of me. It was fun and loving at times, but I was just there,” she explained. “I was a pawn, I was a piece, I was a commodity.”

2. Danielle Fishel shared that while working on Boy Meets World as a teenager, several men told her that they were counting down the days until she turned 18. She added, "I had a male executive — I did a calendar [shoot] at 16 — and he specifically told me he had a certain calendar month in his bedroom."

While she was taken aback by the comment at first, she originally thought it was okay and further explained, "because we are peers, and this is how you relate to peers."

3. Elle Fanning opened up about losing a role when she was 16 years old because someone involved with the movie said she was "unfuckable."

"It's so disgusting. There are so many stories like this that I've heard and talked to people about. I laugh at it now, I'm like, 'What a disgusting pig!'" she said. "I don’t feel like it damaged me, but it definitely made me very aware of myself."

4. Demi Lovato shared that during their time working on Disney Channel, they were allegedly raped by another star. When she told an authority figure what happened, no action was taken and he didn't even get in trouble. Demi said, “And, you know what, fuck it, I’m just gonna say it: My #MeToo story is me telling somebody that someone did this to me, and they never got in trouble for it. They never got taken out of the movie they were in.”

The lyrics to their song "29" also describe their experience being a 17-year-old who was groomed by a 29-year-old. The song is rumored to be about Demi's relationship with actor Wilmer Valderrama. Years ago, Demi shared that they first met at his home, but he wasn't interested in dating until she turned 18. However, they "became really good friends and he was there for [her] through a number of situations and breakups."

5. Billie Eilish opened up about the time her "boobs were trending on Twitter" when she was just 17 years old. "It makes me mad," she said. "I have to wear a big shirt for you not to feel uncomfortable about my boobs!"

She further explained that her breast size was the reason why she wears baggier clothing. She said, "I was born with fucking boobs, bro. I was born with DNA that was gonna give me big-ass boobs. I was recently FaceTiming a close friend of mine who’s a dude, and I was wearing a tank top. He was like, ‘Ugh, put a shirt on!’ And I said, ‘I have a shirt on.’ Someone with smaller boobs could wear a tank top, and I could put on that exact tank top and get slut-shamed because my boobs are big. That is stupid. It’s the same shirt!”

6. Megan Fox appeared as an extra in Bad Boys II when she was 15 years old. In the movie, she wore a stars and stripes bikini along with a red cowboy hat.

She added, “[The crew] said, you know, Michael [Bay, director], she’s 15 so you can’t sit her at the bar, and she can’t have a drink in her hand. So his solution to that problem was to then have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet. At 15. I was in 10th grade. So that’s sort of a microcosm of how Bay’s mind works.”

7. Jennette McCurdy spoke openly about her treatment as a child star in her memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died. During one instance on the set of iCarly, she recalled a wardrobe fitting where she felt extremely uncomfortable when she had to be photographed in a bikini. During this time in her life she wrote about being “terrified of being looked at as a sexual being.”

In another instance, she wrote about a time when a man who she refers to as "The Creator" gave her a shoulder massage without asking permission. “He pats my shoulders and then the pat turns into a massage,” she wrote, adding that he said, “Oof, you’re so tense!”

8. Alexa Nikolas has been very vocal about her mistreatment as a child actor on Zoey 101, and has even said "Nickelodeon didn't protect" her from abuse. She even launched Eat Predators, a movement described as “artivism against predatory behavior in the entertainment industry.”

She recently said, "I’ve been assaulted so many times in the industry, it’s sad, so it was pretty normal," when she was recounting the time she was allegedly sexually assaulted by Jonah Hill. At the time she was around 15 or 16 years old and Jonah was well into his 20s.

9. Bella Thorne recalled a time when she was auditioning and the director thought she was "flirting" with him, even though she was just 10 years old. She said, "The casting director calls my agent and the agent calls my mom, and they're like, 'So, she's not moving forward because the director felt like she was flirting with him, and it made him really uncomfortable.' ...What the fuck are you talking about, man? I don’t give a fuck what the fuck [10-year-old Bella] said...She is 10 years old. Why would you ever think that?"

She recalled another instance where she almost lost her job for wearing a two-piece bathing suit at the beach. She said, "One time, I almost got fired off of Disney Channel 'cause I was 14, and I wore a two-piece on the beach. This stylist that I was hanging out with put this chain on me — it was like a body chain. I don't know, I don't care. There was a fan, they got a photo of me on the beach, I almost got fired. It was all over the media, it was literally viral at that time. And it was ‘How dare this little girl do this. This is so disgusting. They were like, ‘Hey, we’re getting a lot of heat for this. Everyone’s getting heat for this because you’re in a bikini on a beach, so she needs to make sure she goes out in boy shorts and a loose t-shirt next time she’s at the beach.'"

10. Millie Bobby Brown spoke about the different treatment she got from the media and internet users right after she turned 18. She said, “I've definitely been dealing with [being sexualized] more within the last two weeks of turning 18 — definitely seeing a difference between the way people act and the way that the press and social media have reacted to me coming of age.”

She added that while things changed after her birthday, she'd been dealing with this treatment "forever." “I believe that shouldn’t change anything, but it’s gross and it’s true,” she went on. “It’s a very good representation of what’s going on in the world and how young girls are sexualized. I have been dealing with that — but I have also been dealing with that forever.”

11. Emma Watson recalled having paparazzi waiting for her outside her 18th birthday party. When she came out they "laid on the pavement" so they could take photographs up her skirt that would be published on the front page of the British tabloids the next day.

"If they published the photographs 24 hours earlier they would've been illegal. But because I turned 18 they were legal," she said of the experience.

12. Natalie Portman spoke candidly about her treatment as a child actor, which also included a "countdown" to her 18th birthday. She said, “A countdown was started on my local radio show to my 18th birthday — euphemistically the date that I would be legal to sleep with. Movie reviewers talked about my budding breasts in reviews.”

"I understood very quickly, even as a 13-year-old, that if I were to express myself sexually I would feel unsafe and that men would feel entitled to discuss and objectify my body to my great discomfort,” she added.

13. Mara Wilson wrote an op-ed about her experiences as a child star explaining, “Even before I was out of middle school, I had been featured on foot fetish websites, photoshopped into child porn, and received all kinds of letters and messages online from grown men.”

"Every time, I felt ashamed... My sexual harassment always came at the hands of the media and the public," she said. "Our culture builds these girls up just to destroy them," she added talking about the similarly disgusting treatment faced by people like Britney Spears.

14. Miley Cyrus opened up about the 2008 scandal she faced after posing for a controversial Vanity Fair magazine cover. At the time she issued an apology, but years later retracted it by tweeting "IM NOT SORRY Fuck YOU."

She added that at the time, she felt like she had to apologize because she was meant to be seen as a role model to young girls. “I think at that time, I just wanted this to go away, and I think I also was trying to balance and understand what being a role model is,” she said. “And to me I think being a role model has been my free spiritedness and sometimes my unapologetic attitude for decisions that I feel comfortable with.”

15. Vanessa Hudgens recalled the "really traumatizing" experience of having her nude photos leaked when she was just 18 years old. "It's really fucked up that people feel like they are entitled enough to share something that personal with the world," she said.

"As an actor, you completely lose all grip of your own privacy, and it's really sad. It feels like that shouldn't be the case, but unfortunately, if enough people are interested, they're going to do everything they can to get to know as much about you as they can, which is flattering, I guess, but then people take it too far and end up divulging things that should be personal."

16. Soleil Moon Frye opened up about only being offered "tits and ass roles" after wrapping Punky Brewster at age 11. At the time she was going through puberty and "developed very quickly." So, even though she was still a child, male producers viewed her as a "wild girl."

Because of the mistreatment from her peers and execs, she also developed her own insecurities about her body which led her to get a breast reduction surgery at age 15. "It was a time when I was confronting my fears about becoming a woman," she said. "I needed to be sure that I was doing this for myself — not for producers or boyfriends or my family. It takes a lot of courage."

17. Finally, Drew Barrymore shared that while she experienced sexual harassment as a child star she felt like she couldn't speak up about it because the situations were so confusing for her at the time. “I didn’t feel like I could speak to it because I experienced so many things that were so inappropriate at such a young age that I was so confused about what was I accountable for, what did I put myself into, where was I, was I a part of things. We were children," she said.

“I felt like I couldn't speak to the [#MeToo] movement, and I was so happy that it was happening, but I felt like I experienced too many things that were so gray and so awkward and I didn't know were wrong at the time,” she added.

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE, which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.