Disney execs have no problem telling parents what messages are best for their children, but the company has a deplorable record in nurturing its own child stars, according to insiders.
Many former Disney performers have been sucked into drug addiction and pornography, or had mental health breakdowns, or committed suicide.
Troubled Demi Lovato is a classic example. Demi’s problems can be traced back to 2007, when the star landed roles on Disney’s Sonny with a Chance and Camp Rock — and was raped at age 15. But the singer never spoke up as “part of that Disney crowd” who had vowed to stay virgins.
“I stopped eating and coped in other ways — cutting, throwing up, whatever,” Demi reveals. “My bulimia got so bad that I started throwing up blood for the first time.”
While working for Disney, Demi started using cocaine, a problem that eventually culminated in a life-threatening overdose in 2018.
Britney Spears also went from Disney star to dysfunctional adult. She joined The Mickey Mouse Club as a Mouseketeer in 1993, alongside future boyfriend Justin Timberlake, pop rival Christina Aguilera and heartthrob Ryan Gosling. Britney went on to fame and fortune, but it almost destroyed her as she suffered a humiliating mental breakdown, was placed under a conservatorship for years and, as The ENQUIRER recently reported, seems to be acting unstable again.
“No one really helped her,” says Bella Thorne, who starred in Disney Channel’s Shake It Up from 2010 to 2013. “We’re all really to blame here.”
“We can’t obtain this perfection that you think that we are — or that this channel made us.”
Bella has since come out as pansexual, and in 2019 she directed her first porn film.
Miley Cyrus says starring in Hannah Montana from the age of 11 caused her frequent anxiety attacks. Miley adds the damage was lasting because she was constantly “made to look like someone that I wasn’t, which probably caused some body dysmorphia.”
Success as a Disney star also haunts Lindsay Lohan, who starred in The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday and Herbie: Fully Loaded but wound up abusing cocaine and alcohol. Those issues led to multiple arrests and stints in rehab.
Shia LaBeouf says he got PTSD from starring in Holes, and he’s been arrested in numerous countries for being drunk and belligerent.
High School Musical hunk Zac Efron and songbird Selena Gomez both landed in rehab.
Lee Thompson Young, from The Famous Jett Jackson, paid the ultimate price, taking his own life in 2013 after a battle with depression.
“Child stars have enormous pressures put on them before they are psychologically able to cope,” Los Angeles–based clinical psychologist Nancy B. Irwin tells The ENQUIRER. “They may stay silent about any sort of abuse because they feel obliged to by authority figures around them and can be quite vulnerable to addictions and self-harm if/when the fickle public moves on from them.”
