24 Child Stars Who Went to Rehab

After being catapulted to fame and the cover of countless issues of Tiger Beat magazine through his role as Troy Bolton in Disney Channel’s High School Musical in 2006, Efron was forever crystallized as an undeniable teen idol. Following a string of roles in commercially and critically successful movies like Hairspray and 17 Again, Efron’s alcohol and substance abuse issues became public in 2013 when he was admitted to rehab. Following 2 stints in rehab and participation in Alcoholics Anonymous, Efron has been able to maintain his sobriety since 2013.

Barrymore has long been incredibly candid surrounding her lifelong battle with sobriety, detailing her development of a cocaine addiction at the age of 12 in her 1990 memoir Little Girl Lost. Following a slew of increasingly notorious appearances in the famed Studio 54, Barrymore entered rehab at the age of 14 and was granted legal emancipation from her parents shortly after she completed her stay.

Perhaps one of the most heavily maligned pop culture figures of the early 2000s, Lohan’s storied past with alcoholism and drug abuse remained a locus of tabloid fodder well through the end of the decade. Following a plethora of stints in rehab and legal trouble, Lohan was the subject of Oprah’s dubiously ethical docuseries Lindsay in 2013, chronicling her journey to sobriety and emergence from the wreckage of her presently tanked career. The Mean Girls star has maintained her sobriety since the series debuted and has been promoting her return to acting in Netflix’s Falling for Christmas, out now.

Lovato first entered treatment for drug and alcohol abuse shortly after the release of the massively successful Camp Rock 2 and her subsequent withdrawal from the Jonas Brothers: Live in Concert tour following a physical altercation with a backup dancer. The Camp Rock star has revealed she began abusing opiates by the age of 13 and had developed an addiction to cocaine by 17. In mid 2018, Lovato was rushed to the hospital and would later be admitted to an inpatient drug treatment program following a nearly fatal opiate overdose in her Los Angeles home. Lovato’s overdose received massive media coverage, leading her to become the most Googled person of 2018, eclipsing figures like Meghan Markle and Brett Kavanaugh.

Following her eviction in 2005 from landlord and fellow actor Michael Rapaport, Lyonne was admitted to a Manhattan rehabilitation facility for the treatment of a methadone and heroin addiction. When the Russian Doll actress was admitted she’d suffered a collapsed lung and a heart infection, the latter of which would require open heart surgery in 2012.

A Hollywood institution personified, Dunst has cemented herself as a cinematic mainstay since her film debut in 1994’s Interview with the Vampire. Just a year after reprising the role of Mary Jane in Spider-Man 3, Dunst entered a treatment center in Utah to address her clinical depression. The Melancholia star would go public with this information just 2 months after completing treatment to dissuade any tabloid speculation of drug or alcohol abuse.

Following the end of her eponymous children’s variety show The Amanda Show, Bynes was able to successfully shed her thus far juvenile media image and nab roles in more mature projects like Easy A and Hairspray, ostensibly having emerged from her child stardom unscatched. However, shortly before the premiere of Easy A in 2010, Bynes abruptly announced that she would be taking an indefinite hiatus from acting. Beginning in 2012 Bynes would begin exhibiting a series of erratic, bizarre, and increasingly dangerous behaviors like driving under the influence and lighting a small fire in a stranger’s driveway in Thousand Oaks, California. Following the fire, Bynes was arrested and placed under a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold. Bynes’s parents filed for conservatorship of their daughter shortly after, only to be lifted in March 2022 with the support of her parents. In a 2018 interview, Bynes apologized for her past transgressions and expressed interest in returning to acting with her sobriety intact.

Like Bynes, Spears’s parents were granted conservatorship and control of her finances after her rights to visitation with her children were revoked when she’d refused to release her sons into the custody of former husband Kevin Federline. Federline would subsequently be given sole custody of the couple’s children while Spears was placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Spears’s conservatorship would remain in place for more than a decade, only being relinquished following intense media scrutiny stemming the genesis of the #FreeBritney movement in 2019. A judge would rule to end the conservatorship in late 2021. Shortly after the termination of her conservatorship, the Toxic singer was reported to have inked a $15 million book deal, one of the largest of all time, second only to former President Bill Clinton’s deal for his 2004 book My Life.

At 11 years old, Osment became one of Hollywood’s youngest nominees for an Academy Award for his role in the 1999 supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense. The film, co starring Bruce Willis, grossed nearly $300,00,000 in the US and catapulted Osment into the child stardom stratosphere. Following a 2006 automobile accident, Osment, then 18, suffered a broken rib and would be charged with driving under the influence of alcohol as well as misdemeanor drug possession. Osment would later plead no contest and be sentenced to complete 60 hours of alcohol rehabilitation treatment, 6 months of court mandated AA meetings, and fined $1,500 in legal penalties.

The daughter of Black Sabbath’s lead vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon, Kelly first came to national attention beginning in 2002 while starring alongside her parents in The Osbournes, a reality television program following the unconventional day to day lives of the British family. In 2004, Osbourne would reveal to her parents she was struggling with opioid addiction and would enter rehab for the first of 3 times. Last year the former Fashion Police host discussed a recent relapse and subsequent return to sobriety on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook Watch talk show Red Table Talk.

The Dawson’s Creek actor was arrested in November 2002 at a professional hockey game in Raleigh, North Carolina following a quarrel with a security guard. Jackson would be charged with assault, affray, and public intoxication shortly after the arrest. Authorities agreed to dismiss the assault charge on the condition Jackson attend an alcohol education program and complete 24 hours of community service.

Gomez has long been candid about her struggles with anxiety and depression, revealing in 2020 that she’d recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The Wizards of Waverly Place actor completed her first of three stints in rehab after checking herself into an Arizona treatment center in January 2014. Gomez has amassed nearly 350 million Instagram followers (millions more than the entirety of the US population) and has cited her celebrity as a major exacerbator of her mental health challenges.

The former actor and co-founder of the luxury brand The Rowand began her television career at just 9 months old after being cast as Michelle Tanner in Full House, a role she’d share with sister Ashley for more than 8 years. At 18, Mary Kate’s family staged an intervention to address the young actor’s anorexia. Olsen completed treatment for the eating disorder at a facility in Sundance, Utah in the weeks leading up to her beginning classes at NYU alongside her sister.

In 2015 while shooting the ABC soap opera Nashville, Panettiere completed a stay in a rehabilitation facility to address the postpartum depression she experienced following the birth of her daughter with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko. Panettiere would return to treatment again in 2016, causing her to miss production for several episodes of the show.

Richie’s personal life has attracted massive amounts of media attention since starring in The Simple Life alongside friend and fellow socialite Paris Hilton at 23. Following an arrest for possession of heroin in February 2003, Richie admitted herself to a rehabilitation center to mitigate her heroin addiction. Since her stay in rehab, Richie has been open about her long battle with addiction, admitting to using cocaine by 14 and heroin by 19.

The British-American star of Fox’s teen drama The O.C. first entered rehab in 2008 following a court mandate stemming from a DUI arrest in late 2007. Barton would later be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward following a nervous breakdown in 2009 catalyzed in large part by the increasing scale of her celebrity.

The second Full House alum to appear on our list, Sweetin adopted the role of Stephanie Tanner on Full House in 1987, later reprising the role for Netflix’s 2016 sequel series Fuller House. In Sweetin’s 2009 memoir unSweetined she described abusing alcohol at 14 and subsequently enduring more than a decade of addiction following the conclusion of Full House. Sweetin admitted to abusing amphetamines, ecstasy, and crack over the next 13 years before finally achieving sobriety in 2008. Since obtaining sobriety, the actor has completed a degree in drug and alcohol counseling and has publicly advocated for proper addiction treatment.

The Even Stevens actor turned dilettante performance artist has had a long and litigious history of alcoholism since his first arrest in 2014. Lebouf would be arrested again in Savannah, Georgia and charged with public intoxication, disorderly conduct, and obstruction and would be subsequently ordered by a judge to seek treatment for his substance abuse problems. The Transformers star would enter treatment for a third time following self-substantiated allegations of abuse from former girlfriend and British singer FKA Twigs in late 2020.

O’Neal became the youngest person to ever win an Academy Award after starring in Paper Moon in 1973 at the age of 10 alongside her father, actor Ryan O’Neal. The 58 year-old actress has struggled with addiction issues since her teens, eventually losing custody of her children in 1998 as a result of issues stemming from her substance abuse. O’Neal would be placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold in 2020 after authorities were called to a Los Angeles home where O’Neal was alarmingly expressing her desire to commit suicide.

After starring in box office behemoths like Goonies and Friday the 13th, Feldman had officially established himself as a teen idol alongside his Lost Boys costar Corey Haim. In 1990, Feldman was charged with possession of heroin and then admitted to a rehab center for nearly a year to address his addiction. Feldman attributed the impetus of his addiction to long term sexual abuse he suffered as a child in the entertainment industry, experiences he would detail in his 2020 documentary My Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys. In 2013, Feldman revealed he’d been sober since 1995.

Dubbed “The Two Coreys” with 9 time costar Corey Feldman, Haim too suffered a lifelong battle with drug addiction. Like Feldman, Haim admitted to suffering multiple instances of sexual abuse throughout his career as a child actor. By the time Haim was hospitalized at UCLA Medical Center for a 2001 overdose, he’d been to rehab 15 times. Haim would continue to struggle with addiction for the remainder of his life, eventually passing from pneumonia exacerbated by his heavy drug use in 2010.

The Terminator 2 star experienced struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction throughout the entirety of his career, first entering rehab in October 2000 after admitting to abusing cocaine and heroin. By the time Furlong had attended rehab and gotten sober in 2013, he’d faced multiple charges of domestic abuse and a litany of drug charges.

The Iron Man star achieved success early in his career, starring in his first film by the age of 5. In the actor’s later years, he faced legal issues surrounding his drug addiction, resulting in him being fired from the TV show Ally McBeal first in 2000 and again in 2001. Since getting sober in 2003, Downey Jr has spoken at length regarding the significant impact his time incarcerated had on him and would later sit on the board of California’s Anti-Recidivism Coalition, a nonprofit organization advocating for criminal justice reform.

Bridges began smoking marijuana at just 15 while starring on the NBC sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, later turning to harder drugs like cocaine and amphetamines in his early 20s. Before getting sober in 2003, Bridges would be charged with felony assault and cocaine possession, as well as tried, and later acquitted, of the attempted murder of an LA-based drug dealer. Like many of the young stars on our list, Bridges suffered extensive sexual and physcial abuse as a child actor, an experience he detailed in his 2008 memoir Killing Willis: From Diff’rent Strokes to the Mean Streets to the Life I Always Wanted.