Top Line
Former Disney Channel actors, reality TV favorites and other Hollywood stars who began their careers on screen as children will talk about their experiences with fame at an early age in a Hulu documentary airing next month that also marks Demi Lovato’s directorial debut.
Demi Lavato attends the 2024 Met Gala celebrating “Sleeping Beauty: Fashion’s Reawakening.”
The Met Museum of Art/Getty Images for Vogue
Key Facts
“Child Star,” which hits the streaming service on September 17, features interviews with many of those who got their big break before they turned 10 and how becoming a star at a young age influenced their careers, development and later life.
Drew Barrymore, the romantic comedy actress who got her big break in ET at age 7 and was partying away in Hollywood by age 10, tells her story, which is similar to those told by Robert Lovato and Christina Ricci, who also appear in the documentary.
Others expected to be interviewed include former Nickelodeon star Kenan Thompson, JoJo Siwa of “Dance Moms” fame and former Disney Channel actresses Raven-Symoné and Alyson Stoner, with the latter saying the industry exists on “watching young people’s lives tragically fall apart.”
“As a child star, I didn’t realize how traumatic it could be to become a star,” Lovato, who began her career with Disney before embarking on a solo music career after a stint in rehab and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, told The Hollywood Reporter.
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Important Quotes
“It’s not an exposé, but it’s pretty forthright,” said Child Star co-director Nicola March.
News Peg
Lovato spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in an in-depth interview on Wednesday about what to expect from the documentary and how it differs from recent similarly themed projects in that it doesn’t focus on her experiences with any one company or person in particular.
Main Background
In the past decade, many former child stars have decided to speak out about the trauma of their early experiences with fame, resulting in several documentaries and docuseries on the subject. The show Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV made headlines earlier this year for its multiple exposés of the culture fostered under former Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider. The five-episode show featured actors Drake Bell (Drake & Josh), Alexa Nikolas (Zoey 101), and others, who spoke about working conditions on set that allegedly included pornographic images, sexual abuse, and harassment. Schneider later called the show a “hit job” and sued the network and producers of the show for defamation. The lawsuit is still ongoing. The 2020 documentary Showbiz Kids featured interviews with Cameron Boyce, Todd Bridges, and Jada Pinkett Smith. Stoner, who has largely retired from Hollywood, has spoken candidly about the impact her child star status had on her life, blaming it for eating disorders, depression and anxiety, and even penning an essay a few years ago called “The Childhood Industrial Complex.” Barrymore occasionally reflects on her past on her talk show, “The Drew Barrymore Show,” while former Disney star Christy Carlson Romano has spoken about her experiences and advocated for mental health care on sets where there are children.
tangent
Lovato, now 31, began her career as a young girl on “Barney & Friends” and rose to fame as a teenager in 2008 when she starred in the Disney Channel original movie “Camp Rock.” She released her first solo album that same year, and has released seven albums since. In her YouTube documentary “Simply Complicated,” she said she first tried cocaine when she was 17 and first went to rehab when she was 18. She relapsed and went to rehab several times before celebrating five years of sobriety in 2017. Her 2018 song “Sober” revealed another relapse, and later that year she was hospitalized for what appeared to be an overdose. She said she was drug and alcohol free in 2021.
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