Friday 8 July 2022 07:45 PM Actors who got addicted to drugs as child stars as Hayden Panettiere reveals ... trends now

The life of a child star isn't all glitz and glam and Hayden Panettiere proves that point once again as she has recently opened up about how that lifestyle lead her down a path of addiction to alcohol and opioids.

Panettiere, now 32, was already a big name in showbiz at 11-years-old after her role in Remember the Titans and various soap operas. 

By the time she was 15, the actress told People that someone on her team began giving her 'happy pills' so that she would be 'peppy during interviews.'

'I had no idea that this was not an appropriate thing, or what door that would open for me when it came to my addiction,' she told the outlet.

By the time she was 16 years old, she was drinking and taking opioids regularly - whenever she wasn't on set filming for Heroes. 

'As I got older, the drugs and alcohol became something I almost couldn't live without,' she shared, revealing that her addiction got worse as she filmed Nashville and suffered from post-partum depression. 

She hit rock-bottom after filming for Nashville wrapped in 2018. She sent her seven-year-old daughter, Kaya, to live with her father, Wladimir Klitschhko, in Ukraine and was eventually hospitalized for jaundice and told my doctors that her 'liver was going to give out.'

Eventually, she made the decision to go to rehab and after eight months, came out sober and at peace.

Many actors who started out as child stars have similar stories to the Bring It On actress from Drew Barrymore to Todd Bridges.

Drew Barrymore was addicted to cocaine, blacklisted from Hollywood and institutionalized after a suicide attempt by the time she was 13 years old

Barrymore is one of the textbook examples of child stars who are forced to grow up too quickly. 

After starring in the 1982 film E.T. when she was just six years old, the actress found herself partying in night clubs with her mom five days a week when she was just eight years old.

'I had a mom, but she was more like my best friend,' she said on Norm Macdonald Had a Show (via Today). 'She was like, "Do you want to go to school and get bullied all day, or do you want to go to Studio 54?" And I was like, "Yes, absolutely!"'

The list of her troubling habits only ramped up after her parents got divorced when she was nine years old. By the time she was 12, she was addicted to alcohol and cocaine. 

After being blacklisted from Hollywood over her addiction and a brief stint in rehab, Barrymore hit rock bottom when she was 13 years old. 

 'When I was 13, that was probably the lowest,' she told the Guardian. 'Just knowing that I really was alone. And it felt… terrible. It was a really rebellious time. I would run off. I was very, very angry.'

13 was the year that the Charlie's Angels star had attempted to commit suicide and was institutionalized by her mom. She was treated at the hospital for 18 months for her drug and alcohol addiction in addition to her mental health struggles. 

 When she was released at age 14, she emancipated herself from her parents. She explained that the decision was important since she wasn't learning responsibility from her parents or living as a child actress. 

'It really is a recipe for disaster,' she told Macdonald. 'But you know what's exciting? I got my s--- over with at, like, 14. Like, midlife crisis, institutionalized, blacklisted, no family, like, got it done, and then got into the cycle of being my own parent, figuring it out.'

'It's sad that there's this weird alchemy about kids doing this line of work that f---- all of them up, and I'm no different.'

She wasn't done experiencing mature life experiences at 14. She was married to her first husband Jeremy Thomas in 1994 when she was 19 years old but divorced a year later. She got married and divorced to Tom Green and Will Kopelman but enjoys her life as a single woman these days. 

Additionally, she stays away from hard drugs - even though she still drinks in moderation.

Robert Downey Jr. developed a drug addiction at eight years old while growing up in Hollywood

Since Downey's father, Robert Downey Sr, was a big-shot Hollywood producer and actor, the Iron Man star was immersed in the world of Hollywood right from the start.

His father was also a drug addict and didn't keep that aspect of his life from his son. In fact, he invited him into it.

During an interview with The New Breed, his father brought him to a party and let him try marijuana for the first time at age eight.   

'There was always a lot of pot and coke around,' Downey said of his childhood. Eventually, it became the only way he knew how to connect with his father. 

'When my dad and I would do drugs together,' he explained. 'It was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how.' 

Downey pursued his own career in acting while he was a teenager. He got his break when he starred in Weird Science in 1985 at the age of 20 and was cast on Saturday Night Live in the same year. 

However, his drug usage only ramped up as he gained more stardom. In 1994, the star was arrested for speeding while drunk and having heroin, cocaine and an unloaded .356 magnum in his passenger seat. 

Over the next couple years, he was arrested numerous times for his drug-fueled behavior. 

By 1996, his neighbor had called 911 on him after her had accidentally passed out in their teenaged son's bed. This trend continued throughout the 90s and eventually led to him spending time in jail. 

While appearing in court in 1999, the actor admitted, ‘Taking drugs to me is like having a shotgun in my mouth with my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal.’ 

In 2003, his wife-to-be Susan Downey, gave him an ultimatum and told him he'd have to give up drugs if he wanted to marry her in August 2005. 

In 2013, he told Daily Mail that he went through a 12-step program to get sober. Once he was at the other end of his drug addiction, he redeemed his career by landing the role of Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Lindsay Lohan started struggling with cocaine and alcohol at a younger age than she had initially admitted

Lohan was a beloved child star who first won over audiences while starring as twins Annie and Hallie in the 1998 hit movie The Parent Trap - a role that she secured at the tender age of 11.

After featuring in the movie, which also starred Natasha Richardson and Dennis Quaid, Lohan skyrocketed to fame, quickly racking up a slew of other high-profile credits, including Freaky Friday in 2003 and Mean Girls in 2004. 

However, the pressures of the industry took a toll on Lohan. The actress initially claimed the first time she had tried cocaine was when she was 21 and was never much of a drinker - even though she claimed to have had her first hangover at age 17.

Lohan made headlines in 2007 when she was arrested for cocaine possession and drunk driving. She described the arrest as 'totally irresponsible – a stupid mistake' on CNN’s Piers Morgan Live and insisted it was her first time trying cocaine.

'And from then on, the press were on me all the time,' Lohan said. 'It was the first time I’d taken drugs. I was out in a club with people I shouldn’t have been with, and took cocaine, and got in the car. It was so stupid.'

She insisted that since that incident, she had only used the drug three or four times. During that same interview, she admitted she uses 'pot' and 'Ecstasy' as her drug of choice.

However, her father Michael claimed that was far from the truth and that she had been doing drugs at least since she was 18 years old, revealing a time he got a call about her overdosing.

'Lindsay was filming in New Orleans and I got a call saying she had overdosed on cocaine. One of her assistants had given her the drug,' he told The Sun. 'I was so angry I got a gun from the house and planned to go to New Orleans to kill him.'

He also accused her of abusing Adderall and vodka at that point. 

It was then that the Mean Girls star got at least a little more candid about her history with drug use. 

During an interview with Oprah Winfrey, the actress admitted that she had used cocaine closer to ten to 15 times.

'I was terrified of being judged,' she admitted, and additionally fessed up to being an 'addict' when it came to alcohol. 

'That, in the past, was a gateway to other things for me,' she said. 'I tried cocaine with alcohol.'

'I never felt good the next day,' she said while explaining that she'd have the drug because it 'allowed me to drink more. It was a party thing. People would have it, and I’d do it.'

Lohan had been in and out of rehab six times by that point. She also opened up about the jail time she did in 2010 for violating her probation and how she saw her own cry for help.

'Having all the chaos around me that I was so comfortable with, I somewhere inside knew I wanted to go to jail,' she said. 'And I think that that was subconsciously being put out there just by my actions, or lack thereof.' 

She fell of the radar for sometime but re-emerged as a business owner in 2019 and continues to identify as being in recovery. After opening a since-shuttered nightclub in Greece, the former child star got engaged to Bader Shammas and announced that she plans on returning to acting.

So far, she has filmed Falling For Christmas with Chord Overstreet - set for release later this year - and some commercials for companies like Planet Fitness and Allbirds.

Edward Furlong's sordid relationship with adult tutor as a minor and early Terminator 2 fame lead to a life of addiction

Furlong was unexpectedly thrown into the world of acting when he was discovered by Terminator 2's casting director Mali Finn. 

'[Edward] didn’t come in through an agency, he’d never been in anything, she literally just went out to find raw untried talent,' the film's director James Cameron told EW.

'I was in a place called the Pasadena Boys Club,' Furlong recalled. '[Mali] says, "Can I have you come and audition for a movie? I can’t tell you what it is, but take my number down, and call me."'

While Terminator 2 was a big at theaters in 1991, behind the scenes, he began dating his 26-year-old tutor, Jackie Domac, when he was just 13 years old. 

The controversial relationship continued until 1999 when Domac sued him for domestic violence. In court documents obtained by the New York Post, Domac 'was subjected to a barrage of verbal abuse, threats, violent outbursts [and] outrageous and unlawful attacks.'

All the while, Furlong continued to consistently book roles. However, he also picked up on some other dangerous habits. By 2000, when he was 23 years old, the actor checked into rehab but it didn't keep him from continuing to use after he was released. 

'I was a heroin and cocaine addict. It was really scary,' he admitted to People in 2012. The star was initially considered for the 2003 Terminator 3 sequel but was fired due to his addiction.

'Essentially, I overdosed on drugs. I had a contract. And that always really bummed me out,' Furlong admitted to Forbes. 

As he continued on with his career, his drug habits and violent tendencies continued as well. Eventually, his name started appearing in headlines again after his wife Rachael Bella filed for divorce in 2009 -

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