EXCLUSIVE: Lives of Hollywood's Most Tragic Child Stars Revealed Including Amanda Bynes, Macaulay Culkin and Lindsay Lohan
Former child stars have succumbed to adult tragedies.
May 20 2025, Published 7:30 p.m. ET
The Hollywood landscape is filled with tragic tales of fallen child stars, as RadarOnline.com has often reported.
Sudden fame and fortune at a young age can clearly affect the maturity and development of the young actor, however, some performers who found fame have survived and thrived – like Oscar nominee Scarlett Johansson.
Scarlett Johansson
Johansson was able to avoid the child star curse.
Johannsson has been a successful child star since her single-digit years. She skyrocketed to fame at 12 years old after her first big break in Robert Redford’s period piece tearjerker The Horse Whisperer.
But she is well aware her life could have gone a different route, as she recently told Vanity Fair: "Making decisions on your own—like, adult decisions as a kid—it’s a dangerous thing, right?"
She continued: "I lived through that and also was very fortunate that I dodged a lot of it."
However, not every child star is as fortunate as Johannsson.
Amanda Bynes
Bynes was an early Nickelodeon star.
Before Amanda Bynes succumbed to bouts of erratic behavior, online spats with celebrities and DUI and drug arrests, she was well known as the Nickelodeon teen star of series like All That and The Amanda Show.
Recently, the now 39-year-old has turned her attention to a different type of boob tube – having launched her own OnlyFans account.
Macaulay Culkin
Culkin has vowed to raise his kids differently from his childhood.
Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin has been open about the emotional and physical abuse he received from his "narcissistic" father. The now 44-year-old has not seen his dad in more than 30 years and has no desire to reunite anytime soon.
He previously recalled: "I would take his whoopings and stuff like that. But the whole time I was sitting there thinking, 'Oh, I’m gonna win in the end.'
"He had a certain amount of resentment towards me, I think is what it was."
Lindsay Lohan
Lohan has made a career comeback.
Lindsay Lohan has turned her life around after bagging a host of Netflix movie deals, a Freaky Friday spin-off and an unlikely settled family life.
But it wasn’t long ago the actress, now 38, was one of Hollywood's most outrageous stars, known for racking up more A-list lovers than film roles.
In 2014, Lohan’s infamous "sex list" was made public, which alleged she had slept with nearly 40 famous men.
Edward Furlong
Furlong found fame in the Terminator franchise.
Starring as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s sidekick in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a teenage Edward Furlong got a lot of fame and recognition.
But as an adult, the self-confessed heroin and cocaine addict, 47, is better known for stints in rehab and run-ins with the law, which have seen him arrested several times on domestic violence charges.
Brad Renfro
Renfro had a promising career ahead before his death.
Brad Renfro's life and career was like a shooting star that burned brightly before fizzling out.
He made a name for himself at the age of 10 playing the lead role opposite Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones in The Client.
Fifteen years later he overdosed on heroin – and didn’t even get a mention during the "In Memoriam" segment of the Oscars.
Lark Voorhies
Voorhies has denied she suffers from mental illness.
Lark Voorhies is another ex-child actress whose life has been marred with reported mental illness.
But while the star’s mom told People that her daughter has bipolar disorder the Saved By The Bell actress dismissed the claim, saying her mother is "over-loving."
Corey Haim
Haim was a heartthrob in the 80s.
Back in the 1980s, he was one of the biggest teen stars of his generation.
But in 2010, Corey Haim died of pneumonia, penniless at the age of 38. Throughout his troubled short life, the License To Drive actor had a crippling addiction to prescription painkillers.
Gary Coleman
Coleman had a battle with his parents over his acting paychecks.
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At the height of his fame, Gary Coleman amassed an estimated $18 million fortune. But when he died, aged 42, in 2010, his name was usually the punch line to a joke.
After his Diff’rent Strokes years, Coleman was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons – being broke, suing his parents, domestic violence charges and an arrest for assaulting a bus driver.
Dana Plato
Co-star Plato's life was also cut short.
Coleman’s onscreen sister also died young.
Even while she was playing clean-cut Kimberly Drummond on the Diff’rent Strokes set, behind the scenes Dana Plato was getting high on Valium, cocaine, marijuana and alcohol.
In later years she was arrested for robbing a video store and prescription fraud, before overdosing on pills, committing suicide at the age of 34 in 1999.
River Phoenix
Phoenix died outside of an LA club.
River Phoenix famously starred in My Own Private Idaho, Dark Blood, Interview with the Vampire and Sneakers.
On October 31, 1992, the 23-year-old suffered multiple seizures while on the sidewalk outside of The Viper Room in West Hollywood. He was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he went into full cardiac arrest. Despite the efforts to save him, he was declared dead 20 minutes later.
Two weeks after his passing, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office ruled that Phoenix died from a drug overdose. His toxicology report showed the late Stand by Me star had “lethal levels of cocaine and morphine” in his system. Additional tests also detected Valium, marijuana and ephedrine.
