Although many celebrities will tell you that they are where they are today because of the support of their parents and families growing up, it wasn't always that easy for all of our favorite stars. Some have become successful despite their upbringings, and even though it can be difficult to talk about, over the years celebrities from Minka Kelly to Drew Barrymore have opened up about the hardships they experienced early on in their lives.
Some stars, including Hilary Swank, had supportive families but grew up in poverty, which presented certain obstacles that other people have not had to overcome at such a young age. Others, such as Charlize Theron, faced serious trauma and abuse that no child should have to experience.
Read on for celebrities who have opened up about their difficult childhoods. They've come a long way, and there's no doubt that they've managed to help others out there by sharing their stories, as tough as it might have been.
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Minka Kelly
In her 2023 memoir Tell Me Everything, Minka Kelly revealed that she and her mother, who worked as an exotic dancer, faced poverty while she was a child, including a time when they were homeless.
"If she made a lot of money that night, we'd go grocery shopping at 2 a.m.," she wrote, according to People. "My childhood was colorful and chaotic, unstable and inconsistent, unpredictable and hard a lot of the times. But the silver lining is that it made me a very adaptable person."
Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron's childhood was particularly traumatic as she grew up watching her father abuse her mother, which led to her mother, Gerda, killing her father in self-defense after he shot his gun into the bedroom where they were hiding from him when he was in a rage.
"I think what more affected me for my adult life that happened in my childhood was the every day of a child living in the house with an alcoholic and waking up not knowing what was going to happen," she said in an interview with Howard Stern. "And not knowing how my day was going to go and all of it dependent on somebody else and whether he was not going to drink or drink."
Hilary Swank
Hilary Swank has said in an interview with Cosmopolitan that growing up in a trailer park was very isolating for her because it meant that the other kids stayed away from her.
"I grew up feeling like an outsider because we had no money, so I understood 'classism' at a young age. A lot of parents didn't want their kids playing with me, even though the kids didn't care," she said.
Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore's difficult childhood took place in the spotlight, leading her to divorce her parents at just 14 years old, so it's no surprise to hear how it all affected her today. And as the talk show host told The Guardian, she was very angry as a child and young adult.
"Once I really asked myself, 'What are you angry with?' I dropped the anger," she said. "If you search deep down in me, it's like, why am I so angry, man? And it's like, OK, because my parents weren't there — who gives a s—? Lots of people don't have parents. They were gone, they couldn't handle any of it, and I get it."
Eminem
Eminem grew up without a father, who left their family when he was born. His complicated relationship with his parents has been the subject of more than one of his rap songs.
"Going through public housing systems, victim of Munchausen's syndrome / My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn't 'til I grew up, now I blew up," he rapped in his song "Cleanin' Out My Closet."
Tyler Perry
Tyler Perry told People that he was sexually assaulted on multiple occasions as a child — by three men and a woman who were all friends of his family — while he grew up being subjected to physical abuse at the hands of his father, who he later found out wasn't actually his biological dad.
"I didn't know what was going on or the far-reaching effects of it. I just moved through it," he said of growing up in such a traumatic atmosphere.
Oprah Winfrey
Before becoming one of the most well-known talk show hosts in the world, Oprah Winfrey was being raised by her grandmother, who was physically abusive toward her.
"She whipped me so badly that I had welts on my back, and the welts would bleed," Oprah once shared during a lecture at Ball State University, adding that her grandmother beat her again when she realized she'd gotten blood on her dress.
Jennette McCurdy
Not only did Jennette McCurdy open up about her traumatic childhood in her book I'm Glad My Mom Died, but she also shared more details in the interviews she did to promote the book when it was released in 2022, including one with Red Table Talk.
"My mom would be chasing my dad around the house with a literal steak knife, and he'd say, 'Deb, you have to get help. You have to get a handle on this. You can't be doing this.' She wouldn't," she said. "She didn't want to change or couldn't face that she needed to change, and then, eventually in therapy, after just sort of sharing stories of my relationship with my mom, they suggested that she might have had some combination of bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder. Maybe all three."
Nicki Minaj
While talking to Rolling Stone, Nicki Minaj revealed that her father was abusive and an addict, once even setting their house on fire when her mother was inside of it.
"It's the price you pay when you abuse drugs and alcohol," she told the news outlet. "Maybe one day your daughter will be famous and talk to every magazine about it, so think about that, dads out there who want to be crazy."
Her father, Robert Maraj, was killed in a hit-and-run accident in 2021.
Christina Aguilera
Christina Aguilera certainly didn't have an easy childhood, either. Her father, Fausto Aguilera, was abusive toward her mother, Shelly Kearns, and that led Christina to grow up feeling like she needed to "protect" her mom.
"That's why I'm so adamant with my daughter. I'm like, 'First time somebody ever hits you, the first time somebody makes you feel not right about yourself, [you leave],'" she said on the Call Her Daddy podcast.
Ashley Judd
In her 2012 memoir, All That Is Bitter and Sweet, Ashley Judd wrote about how she had been abused by an unnamed family member, and she later told Today that her childhood trauma deeply affected her in the long term.
"I looked really good on the outside, [but] I had a lot of anxiety and insomnia, and I realized eventually that I was really powerless over my childhood, and the coping strategies that I developed had made my adult life unmanageable," she said.
Dylan McDermott
In a 2007 interview with Esquire, Dylan McDermott shared that his mother, Diane, was just 15 years old when she gave birth to him, and five years later, she died when she accidentally shot herself at the age of 20. He then went to live with his grandmother in a neighborhood that was unsafe, and their home was burglarized at least once.
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie and her famous father, John Voight, have had a lot of ups and downs, and as a teenager, she really struggled. As she told The Guardian, her struggles included drugs, drinking, and even self-harm.
"It took me a good while to feel I could be of use to anyone because I felt for a long time that I was a little crazy, that I was a little unhinged, and not settled. If you would have asked me as a teenager if I could have been anybody's mom, or of any use to the UN or write a book, I would have said absolutely not," she told the news outlet.
Shania Twain
During an appearance on Nightline in 2011, country legend Shania Twain said that her stepfather was so abusive toward her and her mother that she once thought he killed her mother. The family also struggled for money, which meant Shania was often hungry.
"I would certainly never have humiliated myself enough to reach out and ask for help and say, 'You know, I'm hungry. Can I have that apple that you're not going to eat?' I didn't have the courage to do that," she said.
Maisie Williams
Before she began playing Arya Stark on Game of Thrones at just 12 years old, Maisie Williams said she had a "traumatic relationship" with her father.
"That really consumed a lot of my childhood. Ever since I can remember, I've struggled sleeping. And I think a lot of the traumatic things that were happening, I didn't realize that they were wrong," she said on the Diary of a CEO podcast.
