Growing up in the spotlight must be hard: as we’ve seen with many young stars, it is easy to take the wrong path and end up in rehab and there are many ways things can go wrong. These 5 celebrities have all shared on how growing up in the public eye changes them and affected their lives. Some feel as though they have benefited from making mistakes in the spotlight as they’ve learned a lot, while others feel that it wasn’t a positive experience but something that was necessary for their career.
Dakota Fanning
Dakota is used to life in the spotlight and wouldn’t have it any other way: “I’ve been working since I was six, Elle since two….what you grow up with is what you become used to. When you choose to do this with your life, you’re in the public and people watch you…but I’d rather do this than not.”
Tori Spelling
Tori kept working towards her dreams which kept her on the right path during her teenage years: “I don’t know. And people always say to me – I started ‘90210’ when I was 16. And I had every opportunity – money, fame, you know – to go down the wrong path. And people say, ‘Why didn’t it happen to you? You know, why didn’t you go the wrong way?’ And I simply say, ‘Because I had my eye on the prize.’ I was given a very fortunate opportunity, and I wasn’t going to screw it up. I wanted to be an actor.”
Peaches Geldof
Peaches made mistakes as she grew up in the spotlight but feels like she has learned from them: “I’ve made mistakes, now I’ve come up from that and I’ve really bettered myself. I did my growing up in the spotlight and that is kind of difficult but I was born into it. It used to be something I had so much fun with, it was tumultuous. And now I’m like a woman now.”
Emma Watson
Emma grew up while filming the ‘Harry Potter’ series and believes she gained a lot from the experience: “In a way, it’s hard to grow up inside a film. I lived a period of my life that is full of lessons and changes under the spotlight. People have the strange feeling of knowing me intimately because they have seen my transformation from child to woman, albeit only on screen. (I) wouldn’t want my childhood in show business to have been any different. Some days I wish my life were simpler but the rest of the time I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”
Drew Barrymore
Drew spent her young years hanging out with older people: “My own mum cared about Hollywood and I didn’t. I wanted to act and I loved the creativity of it, but I didn’t care for the lifestyle, and because I was working, my friends were all adults. I had a tough time going to different schools because people knew me from films and I was the fat child who got beaten up every day.”
