Wil Wheaton pronounce , " As I got sometime , my only request , ever , was to please rent me be a kid and stop making me work . Until I end contact lens with [ my parents ] , they gaslighted me about this whenever I bring it up . "
I think we can probably all agree that it should never be a child’s job to financially support their entire family. Unfortunately, this sometimes happens, and many of the most well-known instances happen in Hollywood.
Here are 13 child stars who opened up about being the breadwinners of their families at such a young age:
1.WhenZendayadecided she wanted to be an actor, her momstayedin Oakland and worked two jobs to support the family, while her dad quit his job and moved to LA with her. However, asZendayagrew more successful, she became the family breadwinner. In 2024, she toldBritish Vogue, “I’m almost going through my angsty teenager phase now because I didn’t really have the time to do it before. I felt like I was thrust into a very adult position: I was becoming the breadwinner of my family very early, and there was a lot of role-reversal happening, and just kind of becoming grown, really.”
" Now , when I have these moments in my career – like , my first meter leading a moving-picture show that ’s actually going to be in a theatre – I experience like I shrink , and I ca n’t enjoy all the things that are occur to me , because I ’m like this [ she ball up her clenched fist ] . I ’m very tense , and I call back that I carry that from being a kid and never really take an opportunity to just try shit . And I like I fit to schooltime , " she say .
2.In her memoirSorry Not Sorry,Naya Riverasaid that, growing up, her family often faced financial issues because of her dad’s spending habits. After losing his IT job in 2001, he couldn’t find work for three years. She wrote, “As Dad’s stint of unemployment dragged on, I became the only one in the family who had any money…I didn’t have millions — more like tens of thousands — in my Coogan account, but these were dire times. There was literally no money coming in at all, so over the next few years, my mom and I made two court visits to request a withdrawal from my account. I’d miss the first few hours of class, and we’d go to court and stand in front of a judge to petition for permission.”
She continue , " Your honour , ' my mamma would say , ' this is my girl and she has ten amount of money in an account that I protect , but late our menage has fallen on hard sentence . We would like to withdraw $ 2,000 from the account to report us for the next month . My husband is presently looking for body of work , and I have two other children to take care of . ' The evaluator would heed , and then ask me if I was ok with the melodic theme . I always said yes . "
take out from her Coogan report was n’t the only way Naya provide for her family . She suppose , " Because I ’d been a work role player , I was also eligible to incur unemployment though I was still a minor . This make for in another $ 700 every two calendar week , in checkout made out to me that my parents cashed , so for about three years , from the time I was 15 until I was a senior in high school , I was almost always financially help my family line in some way … I felt like it was n’t just my calling riding on every auditory sense , but potentially the roof over my family ’s head teacher . "
3.OnCall Her Daddyin 2024, JoJo Siwa said, “My parents thought when I turned 18, I was gonna get my Coogan account money, take all of my money, and have it all be mine…I was like, ‘I can give you so much reassurance, but I will never do that.’ That’s always been a fear of theirs, always has been. Just because the opportunity of me leaving them high and dry was right there. People have done it before. Child stars have done it before, but I would never do that to my family.”
" Today my ma was like , ' I just require to say thank you for never basically kicking us to the curb . give thanks you for buy us this Modern house . give thanks you for letting us remodel it . Thank you for keep us in your bubble , ' " she said .
4.WhenSydney Sweeneywas about 11 or 12, her family moved to LA so she could pursue acting. However, they ended up losing a lot, filing bankruptcy, and even losing their family home back in Washington. So, to help make ends meet, she worked as a Universal Studios tour guide, cleaned bathrooms restaurants, and babysat. In 2023, she toldWomen’s Health, “It was hard because they were supporting my dream, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I didn’t want to fail them.”
" No matter how long it took , I was going to be in a TV show or a movie , and I was n’t going to stop until something happened . "
She also said that once she establish succeeder as an actor , she bribe back her old mob family for her parent .
5.After winning the talent showNew Facesas a teenager,The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Poweractor Lenny Henry became “the family breadwinner” overnight. In 2012, he toldYorkshire Live, “Which you don’t really want to be when you’re just 17, but I took it on because I love my family.”
" I could buy them a unexampled fridge and compensate for the sign to be redecorated , " he said .
6.By first grade,Jodie Foster— the youngest in her family — was the main breadwinner for her mom and three siblings. In 2024, she told theAtlantic, “I was it. There was no other income besides me.”
7.In her 2023 Hulu documentaryPretty Baby: Brooke Shields, Brooke Shields said that, growing up, her mom/manager would tell her things like, “If we get this job, we don’t have to live in our little apartment anymore” and, “If we get this job, we can go buy a new car.”
reflect on her mother ’s experience with alcoholism , she also said , " I felt such a province to keep her alert . My life depend on it , so I thought . You roll in the hay , you just keep the pacification …. You never know what to expect with an alcoholic . It was n’t abusive , but it was emotionally scurrilous because I felt sort of give up every time she was n’t herself . "
8.In 2017, Bella Thorne told theHappy Sad Confusedpodcast, “I didn’t want to audition forShake It Up!I literally said in my audition, ‘I don’t sing. I don’t dance. I’m basically tone-deaf, and I’m not funny. So I don’t know why I’m here.’ And everybody just started laughing. They all thought it was a joke…[But] we were about to live physically on the street if I didn’t have that role.”
She continue , " We were living off Stouffer ’s voucher , and that ’s all we had to deplete every day . That may not voice like a full-grown lot to everybody , but when you ’re a single mom grow four Kyd with debt and you have nothing to your name , it ’s fucking shitty . "
9.In 2022, Keke Palmer told theLA Times, “Ultimately, what happened is that it just hit a point where my dad could no longer do a job because if he did a job, then there would be nobody to take care of my older sister and my younger siblings because my mom was always with me. So it was like, all of our roles were switched. I became the financial breadwinner because my career was bringing in the most money, and my parents wanted to support me, but they couldn’t have their own jobs because their own jobs would not even allow them to really be able to sustain a stable household.”
She continued , " So everybody ’s stead were flip upside down , which is why some years after that , I did start to feel pressure . I started to realize that I was the financial breadwinner and that if I did n’t have a job , who would have a caper ? Or how could my parents have a job ? Or how could we hold up the same lifestyle even if they did have a chore ? Because I was make the kind of money that many multitude never make . It put us in a unhinged position . "
10.In a since-deleted Tumblr audio clip from a few years ago,Cole Sprousereportedlysaid, “My brother [Dylan] and I were put into acting when we were 8 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.”
Then , during a 2023 appearance onCall Her Daddy , he tell , " I do n’t think I ’ve ever talk about this … When my forefather was given forced custody , we had reasonably much lost everything from the young parts of our life history . That would beFriendsandBig Daddy . My mother was an fantastically wonderful and aesthetic woman , but she was financially the most irresponsible charwoman ever . "
He also said that , while their dada initially want them to be " normal shaver " after the divorce , he ultimately decided keep Dylan and Cole in acting was necessary to take care of the family financially .
11.When Jena Malone was 14, shesoughtemancipation from her mom and sued her on accusations that she’d wasted more than $1 million of Jena’s earnings. In 2003, Jena toldIndex Magazine, “Financially I had come to a sink or swim situation. I ran into some strange tax problems, and the only way out of them was to get to my trust fund.”
She also said , " Well , I desire to be lawfully responsible for myself . I require to sign my own contract . If a mistake was made , I would be accountable , and I would learn from it . Unfortunately it ’s not as sluttish as it sound . It was a nine - month process of proving my mental and fiscal constancy … Actually , [ my mom and I ] have a better family relationship now than ever before . As with any change , you acquire a lot . You see things more truthfully . "
12.In a 2019blog postreflecting on fifth grade, Wil Wheaton said, “I know that, by this time in my life, I had been telling my mother that I didn’t want to go on auditions or be an actor. I remember telling her, almost every day, ‘I just want to be a kid,’ and I remember her dismissing that. She constantly gaslighted me about how I really did want to be an actor. She was so manipulative about it. She would tell me how selfish I was because she’d sacrificed her own career to support mine.”
He go on , " Please note for the record that when I was SEVEN FUCKING YEARS OLD , I did not say , ' female parent , please abandon your tremendously successful playacting career so that I may have one of my own . ' Please also mark that , as I make older , my only petition , ever , was to please lease me be a kid and stop making me work . Until I end impinging with them , they gaslighted me about this whenever I bring it up . "
13.And finally, on a 2021 episode of their podcast4D with Demi Lovatofeaturing Drew Barrymore, Demi Lovato said, “I noticed that when I came into the spotlight at a young age and then was the breadwinner, like you said, there wasn’t a dossier, there wasn’t a manual for my parents to read, and it [would] say, ‘Here’s what to do to raise a child star.’ They didn’t get that. So when they would try to ground me at 17, I would say, ‘I pay the bills!’ And I cringe now when I think about that attitude, but…when the world is putting you on a pedestal, you kind of think that you can do no wrong.”
She continued , " As I ’ve gotten older , I see my parents just as big kids themselves . "
Drew replied , " Well , I was break down to say , I do n’t think it ’s the world and the footstall ; I believe it ’s the parent - child moral force that gets all reversed . And no wonder you wo n’t take an order from an self-assurance figure who is no longer an authority figure because you ’ve now reduced them down with finances and responsibilities . "
