1.
First, Ke Huy Quan acknowledged the sacrifices his parents made for him during his Oscars acceptance speech, and he has openly talked about them making the decision to emigrate from Vietnam in order to provide a better future for Ke and his brother. Later, Ke elaborated saying that although his parents were supportive of his childhood fame, when he stopped getting work he could “see them wanting something different” for him.
2.
At age 10, Macaulay Culkin skyrocketed to fame thanks to Home Alone, but his newfound success was hard on his family. Kieran Culkin said that while their lives at home didn’t change dramatically, paparazzi suddenly followed them everywhere, and their parents’ divorce and the subsequent custody battle in 1995, were publicized everywhere.
3.
Zendaya’s parents put everything on hold for her to achieve her acting dreams. After she voiced wanting to become an actor, her dad quit his job so he could help drive her to auditions, while her mom stayed in Oakland and worked two jobs that “paid for all of [their] car trips back and forth for the year [she] was auditioning.”
4.
Christina Ricci has talked openly about how her level of fame as a child actor, especially after The Addams Family, was hard on her family. She’s detailed her parents’ divorce and how she no longer speaks to her father. In another interview, she added, “Some people deal better with fame than other people and some people have more supportive families than other people.”
5.
Millie Bobby Brown’s family picked up and moved from the UK to the US early in her career while she was booking small roles in shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Modern Family before she made it big with Stranger Things. Millie said her older sister ended up moving back to the UK because “she didn’t want to do [America] anymore.”
6.
Caleb McLaughlin recalled a moment between him and his parents after Stranger Things started when they were noticing that Caleb wasn’t treated the same way as the other young actors on the show. “My parents had to be like: ‘It’s a sad truth, but it’s because you’re the Black child on the show,'” Caleb said. “Wow, that’s crazy. Because I was born with this beautiful chocolate skin I’m not loved?”
7.
Jenna Ortega revealed that her mom would drive her to Los Angeles from the Coachella Valley “4 to 5 times a week” for auditions while she was still a full-time ER nurse and has five other children.
8.
Alyson Stoner has talked at length about their experience with childhood fame overall, but when it comes to their family, they said they felt like they “didn’t even know [their] siblings” because they “didn’t really grow up in the same household.”
9.
After booking roles in Goodbye World and Crash & Bernstein in 2013, Mckenna Grace’s family made the tough decision to leave their home in Texas. At the exact same time, her dad was about to be accepted to a coveted residency program in Dallas. In order to keep their family together (and save money on flights back and forth), Mckenna said her dad applied to a residency in Ventura, CA, so they could all move together.
10.
Christy Carlson Romano said that her mom “left her three siblings behind” when she accompanied Christy to LA to pursue acting in TV and movies when she was 16 years old. Christy elaborated, saying, “For a long time, I felt the impending-ness of, like, the sacrifice. If my mom’s life didn’t amount to this perfect version that maybe even she tried to insinuate she needed to have. There was a lot of guilt there and displacement from my family.”
11.
Demi Lovato revealed that her mom, Dianna De La Garza, struggled with the newfound fame and attention they were experiencing when Demi began starring on Disney Channel. In Dianna’s memoir, she discussed how she was dealing with substance abuse and eating disorders during Demi’s early fame. Ultimately, Demi being open with her struggles inspired Dianna to seek treatment in 2011.
12.
In an op-ed in 2016, Mara Wilson wrote about how her mom didn’t like seeing Mara simply being used to play a cute child in Miracle on 34th Street. She explained, “I could sense her disappointment. They were making Susan as cute as possible, and taking away her intelligence and complexity. All through the last few months of Miracle and our publicity tour, my mother smiled whenever people told her I was cute, but I could sense she was forcing it: she didn’t care for cuteness, and her disapproval was contagious.”
13.
And finally, Cole Sprouse has been candid about how his and his brother Dylan Sprouse’s early fame strained their relationship with their mom, who pushed the boys into acting for financial reasons. Recently, he revealed he has no relationship with his mom, calling it “the greatest wound in [his] life.”
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/noradominick/child-stars-who-talked-about-how-hard-their-fame-w