One of the biggest banes to using a smartphone is if your charger breaks or gives out. The most common problem here is your charger cracking, usually closer to either end.

With a little heat shrink tubing and yarn, you have a hack that can solve this problem. To start, wrap the tubing around the cracked area of your charger. After that, use a hairdryer so it shrinks to fit it tight. Now, you can wrap the yarn around the area for extra reinforcement.

We’ve all heard the primary hack on charging your phone quicker. You should turn it off while it’s charging so that it’s dedicating the energy solely to charging rather than use.

There is another hack you can rely on, though. Instead of turning your smartphone off entirely, you can cut charging time in half by simply turning on airplane mode. On top of that, you’ll want to follow the age-old advice of not using your phone while it’s plugged in.

You use your phone every day and touch it a lot. This means that your phone collects a lot of bacteria and general mess from exposure and needs cleaning.

Wiping the surface of your phone with a dry towel isn’t enough, though. Instead, try using the advice of this hack and mixing a solution of 80% water and 20% alcohol (i.e. isopropyl alcohol) to clean the phone and kill germs. Put the mixture in a spray bottle, spray your phone, and wipe it clean.

Our smartphones are useful for giving directions and other important information. Yet, you shouldn’t ever hold your phone while you drive.

That’s why it’s a good idea to have a phone holder and this hack can help you with a DIY phone holder. All you need is a rubber band or hair tie. Loop it around the vents in your AC/heater. From here, you can anchor your phone through the rubber band, displaying it safely for you.

There’s nothing quite as immediately dangerous to a smartphone or most technology as water. Water damage can quickly put your phone out of commission which makes wet environments risky.

That doesn’t mean you can just leave your phone at home when you go to the pool or beach. Try using this simple hack of just putting your phone in a plastic sandwich bag and seal it. This way, you can still use some of the functions while protecting it from moisture.

When you think about saving battery, you probably mind the apps you open and use regularly. Yet, the source of battery drain also comes from background apps that run when they aren’t in use.

To save your smartphone battery, this hack guides you to reduce background data usage. You can access your background data through your phone’s settings. Here, you might find that your phone has apps running in the background that you don’t use or came pre-installed on your phone.

Smartphones are used for a lot more than the cell phones of yesteryear are. That means that the battery life doesn’t always live up to our expectations.

There are a few hacks you can use to increase your phone’s battery life but the easiest and most reliable hack is to turn your phone brightness down. You can usually do this from the drop-down screen on your smartphone but you can otherwise access it in your settings.

This is a feature that, while some people are already aware of, it’s a good hack to reiterate in case you don’t know. After all, it’s a clever way to take plenty of pictures.

For this hack, all you need to do is hold down the button when you take a picture. This way, your phone will take a series of pictures rather than a single one. Depending on what model smartphone you have, you can take up to 20 shots per second.

Because we use smartphones for daily tasks, there’s something that we often forget. While it is a piece of technology, your smartphone still needs time to rest.

If you want to keep your phone running efficiently, you should take the advice that this hack entails and restart your phone three times a week. This will help to ensure that your phone is updated as it should be and give it a break while your apps reset. It’s worth being in your routine.

We’ve already discussed the fact that a broken charger can render a smartphone useless, at least for a time. You have a few different options to fix it.

In this hack, all you really need is a spring from a pen. Specifically, you’ll find this in a pen that you click open and closed. You’ll have to be careful to bend the spring to fit around the head of the charger and then bend it back into place. This will reinforce a charger that’s wearing down.

Smartphones typically feature two cameras. This includes your phone’s front camera and back camera. These cameras actually aren’t the same in how they function.

The front-facing camera on many smartphones has an airbrush effect the back camera doesn’t. This helps make selfies look naturally better. Knowing this hack, though, you can use your front and back cameras appropriately. The front camera is better for softer images while the back is suited to scenes with more detail.

While unlimited data is more common now, it isn’t always the case. So, you might want to be careful with your calling to save that data for when you really need it.

One way to do this is to try transferring some of your calls to platforms like Skype and Google Voice while you’re on Wi-Fi. This will let you make a call without using any of your data without additional cost. Make sure you’re on Wi-Fi for this to work.

Smartphones have become bigger over the years. This helps to expand what you can do by increasing the screen space but it also makes them harder to shove in a pocket.

Plus, putting your phone in your pocket is a slippery slope into accidentally breaking it. You can better carry and protect it by using a piece of silicone or foam to create a lanyard. You can find these sheets at craft stores and just trace and cut out the pattern. Then, hot glue it to a lanyard.

We just looked at what a plastic sandwich bag can do to help keep your phone dry in wet environments. They hold more potential than that, though.

You can also use a plastic sandwich bag to make your flight a little more bearable. If you don’t want to hold your phone up while you watch your shows or movies on it, you can create a quick DIY phone holder to hang your phone off of the seat in front of you.

Getting smudges on your smartphone screen can be difficult and frustrating. They obstruct your view and they just don’t look tidy but they can seem pretty stubborn sometimes.

When you have stubborn smudges, an easy hack is to use an eraser. The best choice here is the big, pink erasers like the ones elementary school students have. You can just run it evenly over your screen to remove smudges. They work well to pick up oil and dirt from your fingers.

If you have a job where you take or make a lot of calls, you might not want it linked to your personal number. On the other hand, buying an extra phone isn’t cheap.

There are apps that work as an easy hack instead. With a second phone number app, you can link another number to your phone. This way, you can make and receive calls and texts for either number. Suddenly, you have some separation within one device.

If there’s one huge downside to playing mobile games, it’s that they’re often loaded with ads. This goes double for games that are free to download and play.

You can avoid these ads by turning on Airplane Mode while you play, although this could be a problem if you need mobile data to play. To help out with this product, some phones even have a built-in hack of their own. If your phone has a “Game Mode,” turn it on to avoid in-game ads.

Ever since TVs started to use remotes rather than panel dials, a common problem has cropped up. That is, we’ve been trying to find lost remotes for years.

You can skip this problem altogether by installing a TV remote app on your smartphone. There are a lot of options for it. On top of that, it’s a great way to centralize the devices in your home the way that smart home technology is doing as it becomes more popular.

If your phone doesn’t project sound very well or if you’re just a particularly deep sleeper, your alarm may not wake you up in the morning. If this is the case, what do you do?

For this hack, all you need is a spare cup. Before you go to bed, put your smartphone in the cup with the speaker closer to the bottom of the cup. The shape of the cup and the position of the phone will work together to amplify the sound.

If there’s one thing that any smartphone needs more than anything, it’s a signal. Without a signal, your phone won’t be able to perform a lot of its basic functions.

Actually, there is an unexpected hack that you can use to help boost your phone’s signal. All you have to do is switch your phone into airplane mode and turn airplane mode back off again. This will help reset your phone’s signal search and boost its chance of discovering a local tower.

Once upon a time, it was common to jump online and print off directions before apps like Google Maps became popular. Phone GPS systems made things much easier.

However, there is a downside. Especially on long road trips, using your phone GPS can drain a smartphone’s battery rather quickly. So, as an alternative, you can map out your route on an app before you go and take screenshots. This will let you swipe through directions without the same battery cost.

The audio that phones record varies widely in variety. This can make it frustrating when you have stunning images but crackling and unreliable audio.

As counterintuitive as it sounds, this piece of advice can actually help you improve your smartphone’s audio features. For this hack, place your finger over the microphone while you take a video. This helps to muffle background noise and to help your primary audio source shine. Not to mention, it’s an easy hack to perform!

Once again, while unlimited data is available now, not everyone has it. This can make reading online a costly experience if it drains your smartphone’s resources.

To counteract this, use this hack and download apps that offer offline reading. This way, you can stay up to date on any information you may need without having to jump online to read an article. For an extra boost, download these apps while you’re connected to Wi-Fi so you don’t use data there either.

One of the biggest complaints that users will voice about a type of smartphone is if it takes poor pictures. After all, there’s a camera installed for a reason!

You can use a pair of sunglasses as a hack to take better images. This is particularly useful if the problem you’re dealing with is a strong glare. Just hold the sunglasses so that you can aim your image through them. This reduces the strength of the light.

If you delete something off of your computer, it doesn’t disappear right away. iOS phones also have a Recycle Bin feature to retrieve deleted data if necessary.

Android phones don’t really have this feature built-in. By downloading a Recycle Bin off of Google Play, you can hack your way around this shortfall. In addition, this will allow you to retrieve deleted data that you didn’t mean to delete in the first place, offering a failsafe just in case you need it.

If you have a habit of losing your phone or knocking it off of your nightstand at night, you aren’t doomed to just repeat the cycle. Try this hack for keeping your phone in place instead.

All you’ll need for this hack is a strip of velcro. You can attach one side to your nightstand and the other side to your phone or phone case. This way, you can lock it into place whenever you want to.

If you don’t have a phone stand or PopSocket, it can be hard to watch things on your phone while your hands are busy. So, what can you do instead?

After you learn this hack, that won’t be a problem again! Rather than investing in something new, you can grab a spare pair of glasses or sunglasses to do the trick. When you fold the glasses and place them upside down, it creates a perfect prop for your smartphone.

When you’re using a physical calculator, you can look in your memory or even backspace on some to correct mistakes. Typing in long chains of numbers on your smartphone can be more complicated.

It doesn’t have to be with this hack. If you’re using an iPhone and you type in the wrong number, you don’t have to delete and start over. While there isn’t a backspace button, exactly, you can swipe back on the screen to correct your typing.

When it comes to taking pictures or seeing at night, your smartphone, at its bare essentials, has a flash or flashlight. Luckily, you can upgrade it with a simple hack.

Well, that is, you can upgrade it with a hack of knowing there are apps available to help you out. When you want to see in the dark, try acquiring a night vision attachment, like this one. Then, you’ll be able to see the world in front of your phone camera as if you’re wearing night-vision goggles!

Anymore, most phone chargers come in two pieces. This includes the main charger with a USB end and a detachable charging block that allows you to plug it into an outlet.

If you’re relying on the USB charger alone, you might find that there isn’t a charging dock in your hotel room. That doesn’t mean you’re out of luck and have to go buy one so long as you remember this hack. Check the back of the TV for a USB port!

Our smartphones aren’t operated by keys like cell phones used to be, for the most part. Instead, smartphones rely on the use of a touch screen to use apps or answer calls.

This can pose a problem when your hands are busy. No one wants to get flour on their phone while they’re in the kitchen, right? That’s why it’s so handy that there’s an app that you can download as an easy hack to answer a phone call by just waving your hand over the screen.

When you leave the house, you probably have quite a bit to keep track of. For instance, you need your wallet and your phone, maybe even a purse.

You can consolidate some of this by keeping items like cards in with your phone. With this hack, you have a few options such as keeping the cards within the phone case or on an attached carrier on the back of the case. Of course, if you’re using this hack, make sure not to lose your phone!

While smartphones have come with a lot of changes, there’s one that you may not think of often. That is, smartphones don’t have the same spiral that home phones once did.

These cords do have the benefit of tangling less and taking up less extra space. With this hack, you can wrap your smartphone charger around a marker and run a hairdryer over it (on low heat!) so that it keeps the shape. Now, you have a manageable cord that can still stretch out fully.

Have you ever noticed that when you use the dark mode of certain apps that your battery drains slower? The same is true when you have the brightness down on your phone.

This is because higher brightness – including brighter colors and shades – take more battery to display accurately. To try and save just a little more battery in everyday use, you don’t have to squint at a dimmed screen. You can also use this hack and use a solid black home screen background.

When you find yourself in an emergency, creating light is important. That’s why many people reach for candles first when a storm knocks their power out.

Phone lights are useful for this but they’re also pretty harsh to look at and have a directly aimed light source. For a gentler and more general light, use this hack and place your phone on a flat surface with the lit flashlight facing up. Cover this with a glass of water or water bottle to disperse the light.

Calling someone while you have a weak signal seems like a no-brainer. It only makes sense since it means your call is more likely to drop.

As this hack shows, there is another reason to not make calls when you have a low signal. When you do this, your phone expends more energy on making a call. This means that you’re actually draining your battery quite a bit more when you try to make a call without the proper signal strength.

This is a hack that’s aimed more at using your smartphone to make your life easier rather than altering your phone itself. Still, it’s a pretty handy hack to know.

When you’re enjoying a day out but have to park in a crowded lot, the last thing you want to do is lose your car. To save time later, snap a picture of something identifiable to tell you where to go. This could just be a label marking “Lot A” or a recognizable landmark.

Smartphones have ever-expanding memories. It seems like every model that comes out holds more information for you but that doesn’t mean that memory is and will be limitless anytime soon.

There are quite a few things that you can do to increase your storage space but if you use this hack, you don’t have to put in much effort. You go into your phone’s settings and adjust how often you delete your phone messages. By using this automatic feature, you can delete old messages regularly.

Losing your phone can be an anxiety-inducing experience. Many of us rely on our smartphones to maintain professional and personal contacts and complete daily tasks.

To help someone return your phone if it’s lost, change your lock screen to important contact information. This way, as soon as they open the phone, they can see who they should call when they find the phone without having to worry about the hurdle of a lock screen. Now, you just have to hope someone helpful finds it!

Losing your smartphone is always a pain. We don’t just mean losing it when you’re out but even not being able to find where in the house you put it is a major inconvenience.

This particular hack for this situation is catered to Android. Android has a feature called “Find My Phone” that you can use when you need to track your phone down. It will even allow you to call the phone to ring at full volume, no matter what setting you had on.

In the modern era, an unanswered phone call or a text left on read can have some unfortunate implications. There’s a hack that you can use to avoid this circumstance.

This particular hack is more suited to phones with a built-in feature, such as iOS phones. These types of smartphones often have an auto-reply or “Remind Me Later” feature that can prompt you to answer at a set time or send out an automated text to tell people you’ll get back to them.

Even if you don’t use your smartphone for work, you’ll probably still find yourself entering your email quite a bit. You need this for everything from logging into apps to making online purchases.

Typing your email in over and over again, though, can get tiring. You can get ahead of the game by saving any emails you might need through a keyboard shortcut on your phone. While some phones may do this automatically or over time, it’s a good thing to double-check with this hack.

Now that almost everyone has a smartphone, people can’t stand out as much just by phone design alone. A custom case is a great way to do this.

However, buying custom cases can be expensive. That’s why this hack is here to help – it’s a low-budget and creative alternative. To start this hack, put wax paper over the back of your phone. From there, decorate the wax paper with hot glue. When it dries, you can pull it off the wax paper.

Earlier, we took a look at how you could decorate your phone with a phone case made up only of hot glue. However, that isn’t your only option.

You can also rely on this handy hack of using nail polish to decorate your phone case. This is a great choice because nail polish is designed to dry quickly but still hold up to daily wear and tear as it does on your nails. You can even add emergency contact details with nail polish.

One of the most inconvenient things about the accessories for a smartphone such as chargers and headphones is that they easily get tangled. They often come out of pockets as puzzles.

Not to mention, frequent tangling can also contribute to wearing down wires. To avoid this, we recommend this hack that utilizes a glasses case. When you have to travel and take your accessories on the go, put them in a glasses case rather than shoving them in a pocket for more order.

From Miley Cyrus to Mark-Paul Gosselaar, let’s look at these former child stars who have plenty to say when it comes to how badly Hollywood treated them during their prime.

Even though Miley Cyrus is more active as a singer nowadays, no one can forget her as Hannah Montana. Even though she seems to have the “best of both worlds” on the show, the truth is she didn’t have it that easy in real life. It was drilled into her head that she was worth nothing without the Hannah Montana wig!

Don’t we all love Drew Barrymore? She stole our hearts long ago when she portrayed little Gertie in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Although she played a sweet and innocent child in the film, that was hardly the case in real life. Drew didn’t have an easy childhood.

She shared in a recent interview that being the sole breadwinner for her family at such an early age put her into risky situations, and Hollywood just made it even worse! This even strained her relationship with her mother and family.

Todd Bridges, a.k.a. Willis from Diff’rent Strokes, is another star who shared their horrible experiences recently. He opened up about an experience as a child actor where he had to go through some unwanted situations.

The interview he had given was for a documentary named An Open Secret. He shared how he faced extreme racism while filming Diff’rent Strokes. However, he finally shared these experiences to help and give strength to other victims.

A very popular show from the ’80s, Punky Brewster follows a young girl and her life being raised by a foster parent. Actress Soleil Moon Frye stole everyone’s heart as the funny and bright Penelope “Punky” Brewster.

However, Soleil’s experience wasn’t that great after the show ended. The actress later shared that, because she had matured early, she was cast in inappropriate roles after the show ended. She also revealed that many people in the industry shamed her as a teen.

Demi Lovato is another celebrity who became a star at a very young age. They were only 10 years old when they got their first break in Barney & Friends. Even though they were destined to be a star, Demi also shared that their experiences as a child actor weren’t so sweet.

They recently shared that, while working at a young age, they were abused by a fellow young actor. They shared that even though they reached out about it to people who could do something about it, they didn’t get any help or support.

We all know how the Jonas Brothers rose to fame. They were very young when they became a worldwide sensation. However, their popularity came with a price.

In an interview, Joe — the band’s guitarist and second-eldest brother of the family — recently shared that, because they wore purity rings and the fact that they had specific contracts with Disney, their projects were heavily monitored. He also shared that this put them in a box and even hampered their creative flow. This was made worse when they tried to break away and do things on their own.

How can any kid that grew up in the 2000s forget a show like That’s So Raven!? It’s quite impossible! There are very few people who didn’t love Raven Symone on that show. However, Symone’s journey as a child star in Hollywood wasn’t as fun as the show made it seem.

She recently shared that while working in Hollywood, she faced a lot of body shaming. She was even told that she wasn’t the right person to do an hour-long concert because she was too “big” for that. As a result of this pressure, Symone suffered quite a bit emotionally.

There was a time when One Direction was equivalent to today’s BTS. Niall, Liam, Harry, Louis, and Zayn stole every girl’s heart. Like many other stars on this list, the band members were really young when their popularity skyrocketed.

However, their journey wasn’t that smooth. For Zayn especially, it was even more challenging. Apparently, he and the others in the band were highly monitored. He even shared how he wasn’t allowed to grow out his beard because he looked older than the other boys in the band.

We all know Jennette McCurdy from iCarly in which she played alongside Miranda Cosgrove. Her popularity also came at a price. Now that she’s all grown up and out of the spotlight, she has revealed how Hollywood’s certain body size expectations made her life way more complicated than it should have been.

She even shared that these expectations instigated her eating disorder at the young age of 11. We can’t imagine how she went through it, but we know now that she isn’t the only child star who suffered because of these expectations.

Cole Sprouse is all grown up now; he’s not that little Ben from Friends anymore or Julian from Big Daddy! He and his identical twin brother, Dylan, have worked as child actors ever since they were a few years old. However, as Cole was growing up, he had a lot of questions about the industry he was working in.

He felt that the environment of Hollywood was “insular” and provided little opportunity for different experiences. That’s why he chose to take a little break from acting to attend college alongside Dylan. He has since returned to the industry.

Anyone that says they’re not a fan of Mara Wilson is lying! She was probably one of the most lovable child stars of the ’90s. Unsurprisingly, though, Wilson had a very bitter experience working in the industry as a little girl.

She shared some awkward situations that made her feel uncomfortable and humiliated as a girl who was just hitting puberty. As a preteen, she had to face what every middle schooler was most afraid of. This makes us wonder if Hollywood really even cares about the treatment of child stars!

Billie Eilish is another star who rose to fame as a young girl. Did you know that she started making songs at the mere age of 13? Even though it sounds pretty unbelievable, it’s actually true.

As she grew more popular, Billie began to receive a lot of unwanted attention.  This undue attention limited the experiences she should have had at her age. She shared that not having a normal life in Hollywood makes her angry at times.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s popularity reached sky high as soon as Saved by the Bell began airing on television. He was just a teenager then.

Despite that fact, though, he wasn’t treated like a teen. Apparently, he was constantly reminded to act like an adult. He was told that he wasn’t a kid anymore for as long as he was on set. We now can realize why these child stars are highly mature for their age and get burned out so quickly!

Can you believe that Melissa Joan Hart began her acting career at the age of four?! The face of Clarissa Explains it All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Hart had a lot to deal with from a very young age.

When Hart’s mother asked co-star William Hurt to speak to her nine-year-old daughter in a way a child could understand, he replied, “No, if she wants to play with the big boys, she has to learn how to speak like the big boys.” According to Hart, “I get that he didn’t want to dumb it down for me […] but I was just trying to hold on to these conversations without knowing how to respond.” 

We all recognize Corey Feldman from all those ‘80s hit films including Stand by Me and The Goonies. Thanks to these projects, Feldman became a teen idol — but it came at a cost.

In recent years, Feldman has revealed that he — along with fellow child actor and best friend Corey Haim — were abused as young stars.

Alyson Stoner danced into our hearts during the early 2000s — Cheaper by the Dozen to Step Up and even Camp Rock, Stoner became a hugely popular child star. Now 28 years old, she has since spoken out about her experiences in Hollywood as a child star.

In a recent interview, Alyson shared that she faced abuse and child law violations while working as a child actor. At one point, she even developed an eating disorder as a result of the pressure.

Regina King is another actor who got an early start in the industry. She began playing as Brenda Jenkins in 227 at just 14 years old.

She has stated that life in Hollywood at such a young age wasn’t always easy. Luckily, King’s mother helped her daughter maintain a good balance between work and school life by sending her to public schools. According to the actress, meeting different people helped her tackle difficult situations in Hollywood.

Kirsten Dunst began her career in Hollywood at a young age. She was just 11 years old when she starred in Interview With the Vampire in 1994. Soon after, she played alongside Robin Williams in Jumanji.

However, she also had a quite tough time working as a child star in Hollywood. In fact, she recently shared that, because of Hollywood’s unhealthy environment and pressures, she suffered from depression throughout her 20s.

Natalie Portman was just 11 years old when Luc Besson cast her in the film Léon: The Professional. Her child celebrity status rose to prominence thanks to movies like Beautiful Girls and Heat.

However, she shared recently that working at such a young age in those roles subjected her to being objectified. She felt very insecure about her identity and work because of this. And so, these horrible experiences have made her reconsider many of her decisions.

Christy Carlson Romano is known for portraying Ren on Even Stevens and voicing the titular character of Kim Possible. Recently, she shared that working from a young age in Hollywood allowed her to earn millions. But, those millions were quickly spent.

Because she began earning from a young age, Romano thought she was set for life. It was only later that she realized work in Hollywood isn’t always consistent. She wasted most of her money because she knew little about managing her finances, and she had no guidance.

Let’s be real here — the  Harry Potter franchise is beloved by most. Although Daniel Radcliffe completely nailed his performance in each and every movie, what people don’t know is how hard the star had it in real life. He shared how the lack of privacy in Hollywood made him succumb to various horrible habits.

During a 2019 episode of The Off-Camera Show with director Sam Jones, Radcliffe opened up about his substance abuse. According to the actor, he used drinking as a way to forget the fact that he was constantly being watched. He revealed that it took “a few years and it took a couple of attempts” to curb his drinking habit.

Often regarded as one of the most successful child actors of the ’90s, Macaulay Culkin was just eight years old when he starred in Home Alone. Despite — or perhaps, due to the fact that he became a household name before he even hit teenagehood, Culkin grew up very quickly.

Thanks to the pressures of Hollywood, he made some really bad decisions during his younger years. During an interview with Esquire in 2020, the 41-year-old revealed that “I played with some fire, I guess is the best way to put it.”

It’s been quite some time since any of us have seen this star. Their name is Rivkah Reyes but you may better recognize them as Katie, a Horace Green Prep School student that becomes the bass guitar player of Dewey Finn’s band in School of Rock.

Now 29 years old, Rivkah revealed in an interview that classmates bullied them after the movie came out and that they became a “raging addict” from the age of 14 to 24.

Alisan Porter was just nine years old when she played the titular character in Curly Sue. However, she shared that acting at such a young age in Hollywood didn’t work out so well for her.

Because of the pressure thrust upon her at such a young age, she shared that she eventually fell under the trap of substance abuse. After years away from the spotlight, however, Porter got sober and won season 10 of The Voice.

Amanda Bynes entered the entertainment industry when she was just seven years old. From The Amanda Show to What I Like About You — and let’s not forget the plethora of films she has starred in — Bynes was one of the most beloved young stars of the 2000s.

However, the constant exposure and invasion of privacy soon made her succumb to substance abuse. During an interview in 2018, Bynes advised people who struggle with substance abuse should be really careful. According to the actress, her habits “made me a completely different person. I actually am a nice person. I would never feel, say or do any of the things that I did and said to the people I hurt on Twitter.”

Lindsay Lohan entered the entertainment industry at the age of three when she was signed to Ford Models. After appearing as a regular on a TV soap opera, Lohan’s career took off as she began landing starring roles in all sorts of films.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before Lohan had a series of run-ins with the law and spent time in rehab. During a 2019 interview with Variety, Lohan explained that she knows “that in my past I was young and irresponsible — but that’s what growing up is. You learn from your mistakes.”

Another star that made his way into Hollywood at a very young age is former teen heartthrob Aaron Carter. He shared that due to the mismanagement of his career in Hollywood, he went through a lot at a young age.

After his parents’ divorce in 2004, Carter became extremely depressed. “I couldn’t dwell on it. I couldn’t think about it too much. I kind of had to block it out. I started partying and getting into a lot of trouble.”

Hilary Duff is another child celeb who became a star at a young age when she landed the starring role in Lizzie McGuire. She shared that being constantly compared to her fellow actors made her super self-conscious of her weight.

During an interview with Byrdie, Duff said that she struggled with food around the ages of 18 and 19. She worried about portions and how much she was eating due to these unnecessary comparisons.

Elijah Wood was just nine years old when he first began auditioning. Before he landed the part of Frodo in The Lord of the Rings series, he dealt with a lot of harsh rejection and treatment.

He shared that directors and filmmakers were unnecessarily harsh towards him, which in turn, made him feel extremely vulnerable. He even revealed that he faced abuse throughout his career, and accused Hollywood of enabling other issues.

We’ve already talked about Corey Feldman and how he shared his horrible experiences in Hollywood. Feldman started his journey alongside Corey Haim.

They both became a household name after the release of their film The Lost Boys. Like Feldman, Haim opened up about the abuse he endured as a child actor. Because of the trauma, he fell victim to substance abuse at some point and sadly passed in 2010.

Anthony Edwards is an American actor and director most widely recognized for his portrayal of Dr. Mark Greene on the first eight seasons of ER — or perhaps his performance as Nick “Goose” Bradshaw in Top Gun.

It was before all this success, though, that Edwards learned about the harsh reality of Hollywood. According to an essay the star wrote on Medium, screenwriter/producer Gary Goddard befriended and assaulted him along with several of his friends “for years” beginning when they were 12 years old.

Best known for starring as Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel, actress Eliza Dushku actually got her acting start when she was just 12 years old. It was during that time that Dushku was molested by stunt coordinator Joel Kramer while she was working on the set of True Lies.

According to the star, an adult friend of hers confronted Kramer, and that same day, Dushku was injured during a stunt, while Kramer was responsible for her safety. Kramer has denied the accusations.

Alex Winter rose to stardom as Bill S. Preston in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure opposite Keanu Reeves. Before that, though, he started out in the industry as a child actor.

It was during this time that, like many other kid actors, Winter faced abuse. At some point, he not only grew disillusioned with the movie business but also became sick of the pressure — all whilst dealing with the trauma from his childhood assault.

Alison Arngrim got her start in television at the age of 12. She’s perhaps best known for her portrayal of Nellie Oleson on NBC’s Little House on the Prairie from 1974 to 1981.

Because of how she had to play her character on the show, Alison and her mental health were negatively affected. Fortunately, she was able to come out of the toxic circle and reinvent herself.

Actress Julianne Hough got her start in the industry back in the early 2000s. But, before that — amidst her parents’ divorce — she was sent to London with her brother to live and study with their dance coaches.

According to the 33-year-old, “While I was in London, I was abused, mentally, physically, everything.” She revealed that it got even worse when she “started hitting puberty, when I started becoming a woman and stopped being a little girl.”

Evan Rachel Wood was just 14 years old when she was cast in a very mature role in 13. She shared that coming from a small-town family, there was a lot of pressure on her to succeed.

She said that being a promising talented actor made it quite impossible for her to fail in her career, as a lot of people looked up to her. However, because of the toxic environment and lack of proper support, she started losing direction in her life and career. What’s more, she also suffered abuse as a teenager.

It’s no secret that pop star Britney Spears got her start in the industry as a little girl, thanks to The Mickey Mouse Club. In fact, she was just 12 years old when she appeared on the show alongside Justin Timberlake, Ryan Gosling, Christina Aguilera, and more.

However, her journey through the limelight wasn’t easy, as many of us have come to find out. She was subjected to a lot of humiliation and scrutiny, made worse by Hollywood and the media.

Samantha Geimer is widely known for her accusations against the film director. She was the first one to come forward to report the abuse against Roman Polanski. She was just an aspiring actress and model when she came to Hollywood.

However, she stated that her dreams and hopes got shattered when she was subjected to abuse at the age of 13. Even after coming out with her experience, she had to face the trauma over and over again in court and in the media.

Evan Henzi was a young actor working his way to Hollywood. However, before he could become a household name, he faced the bitter reality of the industry. He was just 11 years old when youth talent manager Marty Weiss abused him.

He felt so humiliated for what he had to go through that he blamed himself for everything for quite a long time. Later, he shared his experience in the documentary, An Open Secret.

We know Gabriel Byrne as that charismatic Irish actor. However, when he was starting his journey in Hollywood as a child actor, he didn’t have it easy.

Apparently, he too suffered abuse at the hands of some people that he thought highly of. He felt ashamed and didn’t realize the effects that these experiences would have on him. Because he wasn’t emotionally prepared, he masked many of these issues by drinking.

Michael Egan was another young actor who came to the industry in hopes of becoming a star. However, he recently shared how he had to pay the price while trying to make it in Hollywood.

He shared that on his way to stardom, he was actually abused by a Hollywood director, X-Men‘s Bryan Singer. Egan shared very crucial details about the abuse, which made his story very different from others. However, his allegations have not yet been proven.

Now 50 years old, Anthony Rapp originated the role of Mark Cohen in the Broadway production of Rent. He reprised it in the film adaptation. Today, he stars on Star Trek: Discover. Unfortunately, he too faced his fair share of abuse on his way to success.

In late October 2017, Rapp alleged in a Buzzfeed interview that actor Kevin Spacey made an unwanted advance toward him in 1986 — when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26.

Aly & A.J. — now known as 78violet — are a pop duo consisting of sisters Alyson and Amanda Michalka. However, many of you millennials may recognize Aly from Phil of the Future.

Between that and their overnight success as a musical duo, Aly & A.J. certainly felt the pressure, to say the least. Because of it, the sisters struggled with mental health issues. However, they were quick enough to get the help they needed, which made things easier for them later on.

Another Disney child star who started her career very young is Selena Gomez. When she starred in the show Barney & Friends, she was just nine years old. From there, her career only continued to skyrocket.

With shows and films like Wizards of Waverly Place and Another Cinderella Story, she became a household name everywhere. However, she also shared how the Hollywood pressures had made her feel vulnerable from a very young age. She shared that she even made some mistakes early in her life because of these pressures.