The world’s most famous child stars tell the world the darkest secrets of the entertainment industry for minors in a new documentary, Child Star, released September 7, of this year on Hulu. The documentary was co-directed by Nicola Marsh and Demi Lovato; this was Lovato’s first film she directed. Lovato led the discussion amongst her peers in Child Star, reporting with an insider perspective while asking questions only a child star could know. This helped the cast explore the question many child stars secretly contemplate, such as whether is fame worth all the negatives that come with it. With all the symptoms of the stereotypical child star including substance abuse, mental health issues, and the lasting effects these child stars still live with today, the answer gets rather complicated.
Signing up to be a child star is not like signing up to play a sport as an adolescent. Signing up to be a child star means risking the privacy and freedom to live without the spotlight. Actors can’t play one season and quit the next. Child star Kenan Thomspon, famous for his performance on Nickelodeon’s Good Burger, warned people during his conversation with Lovato that by signing up to be a child star both you and your family are signing up to be committed for a lifetime. Tomsphon emphasized this because he knows, “It’s not a normal existence to have somebody in your family be famous.” Even so, that decision is among the easier things to consider for a child actor, but when decisions are tough, Thomsphon and the others strongly emphasized to Lovato the importance of having a mentor.
The child stars, as a whole strongly, reiterated that having a mentor is extremely helpful in taking precautions against mental health issues. Lovato recalled that she often wished she had a mentor to let her know it was ok to take a break when she was first starting, but without a mentor, “Nobody really knew how to stop the machine.” As a result, Lovato filmed three movies, one season of her TV show, and recorded and wrote an album. Following her burnout, Lovato also recalled being difficult to work with at times, as she talked with Raven-Symoné from the popular TV series Raven’s Home on Disney Channel. During their short time filming together, Symoné remembered that she, “Didn’t hold it against you,” with the gut feeling Lovato had something else going on.
More often than not something is going on behind the scenes, but because of how isolating it is for child stars, it’s often harder for them to work through their feelings. Christina Ricci, known best for her as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family, specifically talks about this with Lovato, venting about the difficulties that come with not telling your friends everything. Ricci recalled one of the first times she’d come back to school after working on set and being accused of bragging when she just wanted to share with her friend. This led Ricci to think substance abuse was the only way to be happy.
Alcohol and drug addictions are sadly not abnormal things that follow child stars. During Lovato’s discussion with Drew Barrymore, Barrymore shared her struggle with substance abuse that started from an eerily early age. Although Barrymore highlighted that, while her substance abuse issues had been bad, her father-and-daughter relationship with Steven Spielberg helped her through it. For the first time, Barrymore realized that, “There was no authority in my life, so I loved every boundary he set to me. It didn’t hit me until I was an adult. Oh, that’s how parents are supposed to make you feel.” However, the downside to boundaries set in the industry is that they work both ways, good and bad.
Drew can specifically recall that she struggled deeply with boundaries daily. Outside of Spielberg, Drew was always taught to, “Open yourself up to everything.” As a result of having few boundaries, Drew felt she turned herself, “Into a commodity,” and by extension, “You’re talking about validation, you’re talking about feeling less than, you’re talking about losing people, gaining people.” Many young stars just like Drew, including Demi Lovato, learned how to measure their self-worth toxicly. Revisiting the past throughout the documentary, Lovato observed that she, “Looked at my success as my self-worth.” For a long time she, “Had a really hard time differentiating the two, and I dealt with a lot of need for external validation.”
The insecurities and intense need for external validation are engineered into child stars from a very young age. For this reason, Alyson Stoner, from the Cheaper by the Dozen franchise, experienced severe body image issues. Stoner can explicitly recall learning all the things she didn’t realize were wrong with her after seeing the edited pictures from her first photo shoot. In a heavy conversation with Lovato in a portion of the documentary, Stoner described her immense struggle with her eating disorder during the filming and press tour for the hit movie Camp Rock on Disney Channel. The scary thing is that eating disorders are not the worst of what these child stars are dealing with.
Recently there has been an influx of reporting about the child entertainment industry in the media. Earlier this year the HBO Max viral series, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,
premiered on March 17, 2024, revealing ugly truths. Many of the child star horror stories are all consistently based in a toxic environment and also lack a supportive adult to guide them through the industry. The docu-series along with the newest documentary Child Star are a call to action demanding change to the child entertainment industry.
Without a change to the industry, child stars will repeat the common story of being forced into work. Symoné felt similar to that growing up and explained to Lovato that she, “Understood that this was a job,” but she also dealt with the belief that performing was the main way to earn her parent’s, “Love and affection.” To ensure that child stars don’t get exploited, we need to put more protections in place for children in entertainment. The laws currently in place are small and limited, such as Coogan’s Law which is only applicable to select states excluding Florida, which is a hotspot for film production. The law requires that 15% of the child stars’ income be saved in order to have earnings once they turn 18. Although this has benefited many child stars, it doesn’t apply to the new generation of YouTube stars.
One of the most famous cases reporting on the exploitation of kids on YouTube was the Eight Passengers YouTube family case. Shari Franke (the oldest daughter) has shared her toxic and abusive home environment that went on behind the scenes of the Youtube channel, after her mother’s arrest for child abuse in late 2023. Cases like these are why new laws need to be made to protect children in the industry, and YouTube is virtually unprotected by laws against child exploitation. Lovato briefly touches on protecting children portrayed on YouTube as well as the importance of making the laws a reality.
Child Stars are going to continue to be an essential part of the media, and their role in it will continue to develop. As a result, the laws that surround them need to grow alongside the industry. Documentaries and docu-series like Child Star are an essential part of spreading awareness of the reality of the child star industry, and as a result, more people will guard against child exploitation in the industry. The child entertainment industry doesn’t need to be the negative space that it is just because of its history. It can become the dream the media glamorizes it to be by putting the right protections in place.
