The Biggest Child Star Controversies In TV History

The following article includes accounts of sexual assault, child abuse, and addiction.

Unfortunately, show business has never been particularly kind to its youngest participants. This seems doubly true for child actors, who often fall on hard times when the job offers dry up once they aren't cute, cuddly kids anymore. Sure, some young actors manage to maintain consistent careers as they age. There are also a number of child actors who returned with memorable roles after a lengthy acting break. But far too many find that the industry that was so eager to make money from them when they were young, but couldn't care less what happens to them when their fame declines.

On top of that, there are plenty of child actors who have faced challenges and trauma during their time as big television stars. Controversy doesn't always wait until they grow up — it's often eager to find them before they're even old enough to drive. TV history is littered with stories of child actors who have faced addiction, mental health struggles, and/or abuse from the adults who were supposed to be looking out for them, either during the height of their fame or immediately after it. Here are some of the most shocking cases.

Though there were a few rough patches in the early days — including the "Full House" scene that almost made John Stamos quit the show — it seems as though the actors who played the Tanner family had just as good of a time together as the Tanners themselves did. The fact that everyone but the Olsen twins returned for the Netflix revival "Fuller House" only seemed to cement that fact. But that's not to say that life was perfect for everyone between the two shows.

Jodie Sweetin, who played middle Tanner child Stephanie, has been very frank about her struggles after "Full House" ended. The actor has revealed that she immediately began drinking when the show wrapped, despite being just 14 years old at the time, and she later turned to drugs. When she appeared on "Dancing with the Stars" in 2016, Sweetin discussed that dark journey (via Entertainment Tonight), saying: "Drugs and alcohol just sort of numbed everything. I was doing cocaine and ecstasy and alcohol and all of that." 

As it far too often goes, the media had no qualms about capturing and sharing pictures of Sweetin at her lowest points at bars, clubs, parties, and so on. Fans feared the worst, but Sweetin ended up coming out the other end and has taken both her career and her life back — a much happier ending than child stars who go down that path often have. 

There's a pretty high probability that nobody reading this actually watched the 1959 "Dennis the Menace" TV series when it first aired. But there's no denying that it was a landmark television show, not only helping to set the stage for subsequent "Dennis the Menace" films and animated series but also paving the way for the next few generations of bratty TV troublemakers like Bart Simpson, Zack Morris, and the kids from "South Park."

Jay North was just seven years old when "Dennis the Menace" premiered with North as the titular scamp. However, despite the fact that he starred in a hit sitcom and brought a beloved character to life, North's time on the show wasn't particularly positive for the child actor. In fact, he would later state that it was hard for him to watch reruns of the show, as it would remind him of the intense verbal and physical abuse he said was inflicted upon him by his aunt any time he made a mistake or simply didn't do something as well as she thought he should have. 

This was compounded by the fact that child labor laws, particularly in regard to the entertainment business, were lax in those days, and North was often forced to spend a lot more hours on set than was fair or healthy for a kid his age. Decades later, North decided to use his experience to stop others going through what he did, joining forces with a support group called A Minor Consideration that counsels child actors past and present on how to navigate a business that is often all too willing to exploit them.

Many child actors literally grow up on television, and that was definitely the case with Ariel Winter. She played scholastic overachiever Alex Dunphy for eleven seasons of ABC's acclaimed sitcom "Modern Family," 11 years old when the show began and 22 when it wrapped. It's hard enough going on the journey from tween to young adult when you don't have to do it on camera — imagine having to do so in front of an audience of millions.

To make matters worse for Winter, her mother started dressing her in ways that weren't remotely appropriate for her age. The actor told The Hollywood Reporter that, as young as age seven, her mother had her wearing "the smallest miniskirts, sailor suits, low-cut things, the shortest dresses you've ever seen." She said that, by age 12, people were already looking at her like an adult because of the outfits her mother made her wear. Things got so bad between Winter and her mother in the following years that the young actor decided to pursue emancipation.

Winter got her wish at age 17, with the Department of Children and Family Services finding evidence that her mother had emotionally abused her. Winter's older sister took over as her legal guardian until she turned 18. She thanked her sister and her father for their support on X (which was still Twitter at the time), writing, "I really couldn't have done it without them. Thank you to all of my family, friends, and fans who have supported me through all of my endeavors in life, and have encouraged me."

The premise of the 2007 CBS reality show "Kid Nation" was questionable from the start — take a bunch of children ranging in age from eight to 15 and see if they can govern themselves without any help or supervision from adults. NPR's Kim Masters was one of a group of TV writers who were invited to an advance screening of the show, and she revealed that almost everyone in attendance had serious doubts about how the kids were being exploited and what negative effects the experience could potentially have on them. Almost immediately, someone brought up "Lord of the Flies" and how badly things ended for the character of Piggy in that story.

Over the course of the show, kids got into physical altercations, slaughtered a chicken, got burned by hot cooking oil, got dragged around by their neck by a lasso, and one even accidentally drank a bottle of bleach cleaning solution that was poorly labeled and was sitting among potable liquids. According to later interviews with some of the show's contestants, the adults on set — the camera crew, the sound people, the producers, et al — not only did little to intervene when children were in danger, but would often encourage them to do dangerous and chaotic things. To the surprise of nobody, "Kid Nation" only lasted one season.

There are a lot of things that you probably didn't know about "The Brady Bunch." But one thing that just about everyone knows at this point is that a lot of romances happened between the actors who played the various Brady kids. As Barry Williams, who played eldest son Greg, so succinctly put it in an interview with Us Weekly, "We all hooked up with each other at some point." That being said, it's not exactly controversy territory that a bunch of young actors who spent years filming a show together had a fling or two.

What is controversial, however, is the much-repeated urban legend that Greg had a thing with Florence Henderson, who played Brady matriarch Carol Brady. For Williams' part, he mostly only ever admitted to having a crush on his TV mom. It was Henderson herself who first admitted that she took Williams out to dinner once, when she was 36 and he was 16. The fact that she ended the evening by kissing Williams on the cheek probably didn't do much to lessen his confusion about the whole thing.

"I guess in a sense it was a date, because Barry thought it was," Henderson once admitted on her website. "But of course, I had no idea that his intentions were to 'date' me. It has made for a good story though!" A single dinner between co-stars that ended with a peck on the cheek isn't the most salacious story in the world, but the age gap and mixed feelings make the encounter a little inappropriate.

Debuting on ABC in 1985, "Growing Pains" was a fairly traditional sitcom without any particular gimmick. It just followed a suburban family of five — later six after the arrival of baby Chrissy — sharing the laughter and love. Oh, and a certain young actor named Leonardo DiCaprio also joined the cast for the seventh and final season. But as for the show's main ensemble, it centered around the Seaver family, which included oldest daughter and second-oldest child Carol (Tracey Gold).

Carol was the show's token "nerdy" character, back when any TV character who even remotely cared about school or happened to enjoy reading automatically got that dismissive label. She was often the butt of jokes about her bookworm tendencies, especially from her so-called cooler older brother Mike (Kirk Cameron). Unfortunately, because Tracey Gold's weight fluctuated a bit — as it does for pretty much every teenager in the history of the world — and was therefore sometimes a non-skinny girl on TV in the 1980s, that meant that a lot of the jokes made at her expense also poked fun at her weight.

As the jokes got progressively meaner, Gold eventually worked up the nerve to complain to the writers — only to be told that this is just something big brothers do, essentially shutting down her protests. Even worse, Gold was eventually informed that the show wanted her to lose weight. She did, and storylines were then changed to reflect how much more attractive Carol suddenly was — up to and including her becoming the homecoming queen. All of this messed with Gold's head and had a negative impact on how she viewed herself and her body, eventually leading to her struggling with anorexia. 

Given the fact that two of the main kids from "Diff'rent Strokes" are on the tragically long list of former child stars who have passed away (Dana Plato and Gary Coleman), and the other (Todd Bridges) faced years of struggles related to addiction and legal problems, it's easy to see why some people have talked of a curse around the classic sitcom. Plato and Bridges — who played Kimberly and Willis, respectively — both fell into substance abuse. Coleman — who played Arnold, Willis' younger brother – had his own issues during his "Diff'rent Strokes" stint, related to being overworked for his age and being financially taken advantage of by his parents.

Plato tried in vain to maintain an acting career, but the fact that her most notable role after "Diff'rent Strokes" was in the 1992 video game "Night Trap" — which was largely maligned in its day and only later achieved cult classic status — speaks volumes. She struggled with substance addiction throughout her life and was even arrested for forging Valium prescriptions at one stage. That same substance contributed to her tragic death in 1999 at the age of 34. Coleman also never again achieved the level of success he had on "Diff'rent Strokes" and at one point took a job as a mall security guard to make ends meet. He died in 2010 aged 42. Thankfully, Bridges managed to turn his life around and is still acting today — he starred in the holiday-themed romantic comedy "Christmas in the Friendly Skies" in 2024.

There might have been some questionable things we ignored in "Zoey 101," the 2005 Nickelodeon series that follows Zoey Brooks (Jamie Lynn Spears) and her friends as they attend Pacific Coast Academy boarding school. But the biggest controversy surrounding the show came when it was revealed that Spears was pregnant — she was 16 when the news broke. This sparked outrage, with many parents saying that a show starring a teenage mother didn't set a good example for its young viewers. There were calls for "Zoey 101" to be cancelled immediately and for Nickelodeon to not even air the already-completed fourth season.

The fourth season still aired as planned, but it would be the last. This led to the widely-believed assumption that Nickelodeon cancelled the show specifically because of Spears' pregnancy and/or the backlash that ensued. However, Spears would later clarify that no such thing occurred, and that she had actually chosen to quit the show when she found out she was pregnant. She then took a break from acting and spent the next few years living a private life as she focused on motherhood.

Spears eventually returned to acting when she reprised the role of Zoey for the 2020 Paramount+ movie "Zoey 102," which she also executive produced. Zoey is revealed to be a 32-year-old reality TV producer in the film, which dropped to mixed reviews. It was never going to win any awards, but the nostalgia value is high. In its review, The New York Times said: "Even if there's a ceiling to how much can be achieved here, returning fans wanting a reminder of their youths will get just enough of what they came for."

Between his roles on the shows "Eight is Enough" and "Code Red," child actor Adam Rich was affectionately known as America's little brother in the late-70s and early-80s. Sadly, Rich ended up being one of the earliest examples of a child star who struggled with the decline of his career as he aged. Faced with an industry that seemingly turned its back on him after it no longer had any use for him, he spent the rest of his life dealing with that rejection in less than ideal ways.

After Rich's stint doing voicework for the 1983 "Dungeons & Dragons" animated series, the young actor spent the next eight years not being able to land anything other than single-episode appearances on various scattershot TV shows and a couple of "Eight is Enough" TV movies. During that time, his life off screen was already in turmoil: He nearly died of a Valium overdose in 1989 and was arrested for trying to break into a pharmacy in 1991.

After 1993, Rich's acting roles dried up entirely, and any time his name popped up in the media after that, it was for something like his 2002 DUI arrest. He had only one more screen appearance, a cameo as himself in the 2003 comedy "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star," before finally leaving acting behind for good. He went to rehab several times in the years that followed and often posted about destigmatizing mental illness on social media. Rich died of a fentanyl overdose in 2023, aged 54.

With the release of the 2024 documentary series "Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV," the world was shocked to learn about the alleged abuse of numerous child actors working on Nickelodeon shows through the 1990s and 2000s. Producer Dan Schneider and dialogue coach Brian Peck were the primary focus of the accusations, which came from actors that appeared on Schneider-produced and/or created shows like "All That," "The Amanda Show," "iCarly," "Sam & Cat," "Drake & Josh," "Zoey 101," and more.

Schneider has conceded that he behaved in a way that represents poor judgment. He has also said that it was "difficult" to watch the documentary. "Facing my past behaviors — some of which are embarrassing and that I regret — and I definitely owe some people a pretty strong apology," he said (via NBC). However, he denied abusing anyone and subsequently filed a defamation lawsuit against the producers of "Quiet on Set." The lawsuit states that Schneider "was not a child sexual abuser himself" and that the series has "destroyed Schneider's reputation and legacy through the false statements and implications that Schneider is exactly that."

Brian Peck was arrested in 2003 and found guilty on 11 counts of lewd conduct with a minor, which was later confirmed to be Nickelodeon star Drake Bell by Bell himself. Peck was sentenced to 16 months in jail. In "Quiet on Set," Bell says that he suffered "extensive" and "brutal" sexual abuse at the hands of Peck, who was ordered to register as a sex offender following his guilty verdict.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of abuse or sexual assault, or needs help with addiction issues, help is available via the following resources:
The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network's website, or its National Helpline: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's website, or its National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)