Hi, Mr. Camera Guy. Hi!
Downloaded from YTS.MX
That's a tiny little seat.
It's fluffy!
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
This is a small chair.
In a couple of seconds,
- I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions. - Okay.
And there's no wrong answer. - 'Kay.
Tell me, if you could do anything when you're older,
- what do you wanna do? What's your thing? - I wanna be a famous singer.
Well, it's kind of complicated.
A famous soccer player.
I wanna be an actor.
I really love to act,
but I also really would love to teach little kids.
When I grow up, I would like to be a gamer.
Uh...
a model.
Do you know what being famous is?
Kinda like being, like, popular at school,
but, like, times 1,000.
I think it's, yeah, fun
and sort of in the middle of good and bad.
You get a lot of money.
Yeah, everyone knows you. Everyone likes you.
Everyone wants to be your friend.
You get a bunch of attention.
And you get to travel the world
and do stuff in other places.
Everybody would know you because you don't wanna be a lone wolf!
What's bad about it is that you can get very egotistica--
egotistical, I think?
People would try to take photos of you and post them on Internet.
Lots of people crowd around you,
and sometimes it makes you nervous.
It's, it's kinda hard, if you're famous, having your own life.
Do you like it when people film you?
How does it feel now? You're doing it right now.
I'm a little bit nervous
and a little bit happy.
On a scale of one to 10, how much are you hating me filming you?
Um... I don't mind.
Be honest.
I think on a scale of one to 10, it's like an eight.
Feels like a nine.
I think I just don't like being on camera.
Why?
I think that...
like, being on camera
makes a lot of my body image issues come up
and...
I'm constantly like, when I'm--
when I'm on camera, I'm just hyper-aware of that.
And...
yeah, it just makes me a little uncomfortable.
When I was a kid, I was so close with my great-grandparents.
They were my world. I just loved them so much.
They had these two recliner chairs that they would sit in
and we would watch TV together.
I just have this memory of Shirley Temple appearing on their TV.
And I thought,
"I'm going to be the next Shirley Temple.
"I'm gonna be the next child star.
If she can do it, I can do it."
♪ ...of the sea, we'll join in the jamboree ♪
♪ At the Codfish Ball ♪ And I did.
Barney!
♪ Mirror, mirror, mirror ♪
I've dreamed about this for so long!
- Thank you! - Demi Lovato.
Some girl screamed and said my name, and I was like...
News about Demi Lovato.
How could you?
Sorry. We're gonna need a lot more work.
We're not giving up.
I'm serious.
I didn't realize that it would
have such a negative impact on my mental health.
And, unfortunately, sometimes that looks explosive,
like an incident where you punch your backup dancer on an airplane
or you overdose from heroin.
I really thought I had all the answers
and I thought I had gone through so much
that I knew everything. And now, I look at other people,
and I'm like, "I know nothing,
and the only way I'm gonna get answers is to listen."
When I'm performing in a show,
and I see an empty seat, like, it really fucks with me.
Even on stage. Like, I'll see an empty seat,
and I'm like, "Ugh, I'm not good enough."
Really? - You know? Yeah. It's just like,
it's this belief that was instilled in me
as a, as a young performer...
that... I, I...
looked at my success as my self-worth.
Mm-hmm. - You know?
I had a really hard time differentiating the two.
Mm-hmm. - And I dealt with...
a lot of need for external validation,
um, because I was equating
my success to my self-worth. Mm-hmm.
Um, I was just wondering if you ever experienced any of that
and what that would've been like for you if you did.
Yeah, I mean, that's wild to hear, you know what I mean?
Because you are so, like, beloved. You know what I mean? Like, you have
fanatics, you know what I mean? And, like, those people have those things
because it's earned, you know what I mean? You're a giant ball of talent,
but, like, to see that one inkling of a thing like that
can irk a person like that is--
It's interesting to, like, you know, discuss because...
yeah, I mean, I've had those same kind of experiences where
there's a chip in the armor, you know what I mean?
And it's like, "Shit, everything's not perfect,"
or "I'm not perfect enough."
So, you, you migrate towards those that are going to give you
that, you know, validation, whether that, you know,
it's good for you or not,
you know what I'm saying? Yeah.
So, it's not a normal existence to have somebody in your family be famous,
you know what I mean? And, like,
that's just a, a weird thing that, like, you have to know--
You don't have to, but it's good to know what you're signing up for.
When I was 11 months old, I wanted be an actress.
Can I get you a glass of milk, honey?
Milk? I'm a Barrymore!
Get me a drink, and make it a double!
Hi!
- Hi. - Hi.
- Thank you so much for doing this. - We finally get to do this.
- Yes! We finally get to. - I think we've been talking about it for,
- what, a year almost? - Yeah.
I feel lucky that I'm a part of it.
Oh, my God, of course! How could we not have you a part of this?
You were sort of almost born into it, given that you started at 11 months old.
Totally.
It was a Gaines-Burgers puppy chow commercial.
And I've never stopped working since then
except for when I was
institutionalized by my mother.
My mom was a waitress at the Troubadour and The Comedy Store,
which were coolest of the cool. Wow.
And then she met my dad
who was so cool, he was lethally, deadly cool.
Toxically cool.
And I think she knew she needed to get away from him.
Mm-hmm. - Um, he was dangerous.
He was on a lot of drugs.
And then, she's just this single mom,
raising a baby in 1975 with no money.
There was a, a quietness in our apartment.
A, a loneliness.
And then when I got to ET,
it was like a big bustling environment full of people
and life and creativity and theatrics and play.
What kid doesn't wanna play?
Look what I made for you, Elliott!
I wonder why did my mom think it was a good idea
for me to go into this?
Was it 'cause she wanted to be an actress herself?
Was it the fact that my dad and his family,
the Barrymores, were actors?
I've suddenly become quite important.
I was always studying my family and the old black-and-white movies.
Mm-hmm. So Shirley Temple was
the child star of that era. Yeah.
Yeah, I also looked up to Shirley Temple
as a young child performer and was just like,
"I wanna be that someday. I wanna be the youngest and the best at what I do."
♪ Hey, what did the blue jay say? ♪
Children have been part of the workforce
for an incredibly long time.
Half a million children are working as young as 5,
work 14 hours a day for as little as three cents an hour.
But in 1938, the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act
was the first set of comprehensive federal legislation
that had wage, hour, and workplace condition laws
for the whole country.
Child labor is appalling.
And children received special protections,
except for child actors.
The Shirley Temple Act carved out child entertainers
from the protections that children got in most other occupations.
Congress didn't really seem to think
that child entertainers would be as big of a part
of the nation's workforce as they went on to be.
Look at these. Oh, my God!
This is me in the pageants.
- Did you sing? - Yeah, singing was my, my talent.
- Aw! - Oh, my God,
I love that picture. You were so cute.
I remember one time, you made a whole CD
of, like, eight songs you sang to tracks.
Yeah.
And you sold the CDs for $10 each.
I went around in the neighborhood and sold my CD so that I could raise money
- to be in the pageants. - Pushing mix tapes.
Yeah, mix tapes.
Hottest Mix Tape of the Year.
But, we did things,
uh, we bought dresses at Goodwill.
I wanted to give them every opportunity I could
to let them do what I didn't get to do when I was a kid.
And some things we couldn't afford to do at that time,
but if we could, we did it.
Do you remember when we would drive to auditions to Austin,
- and we would hold up signs in the back? - And we'd say, "Honk if--"
"Honk if you're beautiful."
And it's on the back of a script!
That script is the one where Dallas threw the milkshake out the window.
I know!
She didn't realize the window in the back seat was open.
So when she threw the milkshake out,
- it just went right back in all over us. - Came right back in, yeah.
The wind threw it right back--
We were on our way to an audition.
And we had to wash our hair at a gas station,
- like in the sink at a gas station. - Did you show up with wet hair?
I don't remember. I may have dried-- No!
I stuck both of them underneath the hand dryer.
And I went like this.
Here's the thing, it's the ultimate sin
to show up at an audition late.
Or with milkshake in your hair.
Let me tell you, I was panicking.
It's really hard to be an actor's parent.
You have to give up your career.
You have to take them to auditions all of the time.
You have to be on set.
How are you gonna work?
A lot of times, we think that it's the parents
dragging the kids to Hollywood,
and they have ideas about how this child
can support the family, and everyone can go live on a yacht or something.
In many cases, it's the kid who sees this
as a way out.
They are born artists,
this sense of seeing the world in a different way.
The characteristics that some of the kid actors share
is that they're quirky.
I'm not perky.
That's for damn sure.
But I wanna be.
So, how do you find your lanes in life
to work with your quirkiness?
I wanna smile. And sing and dance.
Oh, darling, do you really mean it?
If acting is your thing,
be the best entertainment professional you can be.
Some see this as a way of catapulting the family
to stability and becoming happy.
I was really unhappy in my home life and at school,
and I was really bored, and I was getting into, like, really crazy trouble at 7.
Wow, okay. Mm-hmm.
And so, as soon as I started going on auditions
every day after school with my mother, all of it stopped.
- All the trouble, everything. - Mm-hmm.
But what I really loved
was getting to go with my mom on the bus to New York
to the Port Authority.
And my mother was kept in a place in my home
where she was not present. Mm-hmm.
And as soon as she and I got out of the house,
she had a personality.
We became very close,
and she would teach me about street smarts
and getting around Manhattan
and all the stuff to avoid getting killed at the Port Authority.
And, um-- 'Cause it was 1987,
so it was a really unsafe time to be...
Yeah. - Thank you.
...at the Port Authority.
So, having that one-on-one attention from my mother
was something that was really incredible.
I think I also really loved having something finally
that I knew I was good at. Mm-hmm.
And getting all that positive reinforcement all the time
for being good at something. Yeah.
Bravo!
What a wonderful job
- you did in this movie! - Thank you.
I had a very chaotic home.
My father was a failed cult leader.
And so, he had all that same sort of, like,
really crazy narcissism,
uh, that goes along with someone wanting to run a cult.
Mm-hmm. - Um,
and he was very physically violent.
There was never any peace in my house. Right.
And you found peace on set. Yeah!
I knew nothing totally insane was about to happen.
Right. You know?
Nobody was gonna, like, get really mad and pretend
they were gonna drive the car into a wall.
For me, there was this refuge of emotional safety.
He's a nice director, that's for sure. And, um...
...he, he needs a lot of sleep. That's--
Because he has to work late at night.
That film changed my life.
There was something very different about E.T.
because of the way Steven Spielberg treated me.
I did not have a father,
and he was the person who made me feel like,
all of a sudden I wanted to be my best for.
Gimme your other hand. There we go!
Ah! That's great for the small of your back.
As I was saying.
What I loved was that Steven went out of his way
to make E.T. real for me.
He's really real.
Then why are all those wires?
Those aren't wires. Those are his feet. Didn't you know that?
He was also the first person I felt embarrassed in front of
if I behaved badly or was caught drinking.
There was no authority in my life,
so I loved any boundary he set to me.
It didn't hit me until I was an adult,
"Oh, that's how parents are supposed to make you feel."
What is this?
Cheese ball pick-me-ups, accompanied by miniature franks,
and, for dessert, marshmallow kebobs.
My mother at the time did not know anything about making movies.
She just really didn't know. And Cher took me under her wing,
and she recognized that sometimes you could be on a set,
and you don't know exactly what is going on behind the scenes,
power struggles or different issues,
and if you don't know any better and have no experience,
you could think it was your fault.
Right. - And she never wanted me to feel insecure.
She was great. I spent all my time with her.
I used to hide from tutor school in her trailer
and eating See's.
She was obsessed with the chocolate See's lollipops.
Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah.
It was the first time I had ever seen, um, sparkling water also.
I was like,
"These rich people with their bubbly water."
She kind of was like-- Was she a mentor to you?
Yeah, I was really lucky in that when I first started,
I had a lot-- I worked with a lot of women
that were very strong.
They weren't-- They were, they were great talents,
but they were also very strong and had boundaries
and had rules about how they were treated,
and that's one thing I definitely got from her.
That's so nice that you had someone,
a strong woman to look up to on set. Yeah.
And that, that looked after you.
Um, I think it's--
And it was my first experience, and she was really in charge.
Yeah. Um, I didn't have that experience.
- I'm sorry. - It was a man's world for me.
Nobody around me really knew
this is what can happen to your kid.
I think anybody lucky enough,
or is a lucky person to get a mentor, for sure.
Yeah. - 'Cause it's like,
you know, it starts with your parents, yes,
but kids don't listen to their parents, you know what I mean?
Like, kids will listen to their parents' friend
saying the exact same thing that their parents said
and actually listen to that person.
Right. - It's just one of those dynamics in life.
I had, you know, my theater mentor,
you know, our drama teacher, Freddie Hendricks, was a big one.
You know, a lot of people in the church,
I would say, like, the church as a whole growing up.
And then, you know, as I got older or, you know, further into the business,
like, you know,
Brian Robbins is a big mentor of mine,
the producer on the show All That.
Woo! What's happening, y'all?
Hi, Kenan!
I secretly was bummed
that I was a Disney kid because I was like I never got to, like--
- Yeah, I knew it! - I never got to get slimed!
Yeah, no, I was a huge fan of Nickelodeon, like, for that reason.
Double Dare was the craziest thing I'd ever seen,
- and I just, I wanted that. - Yes!
Disney was like the most wholesome reality there could ever be created.
- Right. - So, Nickelodeon was just like,
"Yeah, we're punks or whatever.
We listen to hip-hop, we listen to R&B." You know what I mean?
Ha! Hello there.
Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger.
- Can I take your order? - Oh, no, no. No food for me now.
Before Nickelodeon, before the 1980s really,
children's entertainment was definitely geared toward children,
but there was only the three channels,
and there's not really a lot of children per se.
Even the cartoons were ostensibly adults.
Look at me. I'm calm.
Why shouldn't you be? Your wife isn't having a baby.
The broadcast television model
was as broad as possible,
and then, all of a sudden, there was this new way
of piping television into homes: cable.
We've got that splintering of the audience.
It starts to become compartmentalized to very specific demographics.
Well, why not start a channel aimed at kids?
Nickelodeon is narrowly cast at children.
Alright! By the early '80s,
everybody's got a TV. Some people have three TVs, four TVs.
There's a TV in the kids' room.
It's not just downstairs anymore.
So Nickelodeon does some of the first-ever
focus groups for children.
It's really the first time where they're sitting down
with the kids and saying, "What do you want us to show?"
The biggest thing that they realize is that kids wanna see themselves.
Me? - Great idea, Spongie.
I'm really gettin' sick of this.
From the '80s onward, there was a big ideological shift,
and there were more and more kids on television.
Three, two, one!
The Disney Channel is on the air!
Disney kicks off its own channel.
Now, there's competition.
Nickelodeon, they actually were trying to be very anti-Disney,
kind of "Damn the Man," irreverent,
dirty, and disgusting, and slime,
and, as they would tout, "What children want."
Nickelodeon gives you what you want!
Yo, what's up, everybody? Kenan Thompson here
on the set of Good Burger, the movie.
I had the Good Burger orange VHS. The orange tape.
And I probably still do in storage.
Yeah, that orange tape is synonymous,
I think, with that era. Like, everybody says it.
Like, "Yo, when I was growing up..." Yes. The orange tape.
That was the-- Some people are like, "That's the only movie we had."
Aw. It was the orange tape.
I'm like, "That's-- I'm-I'm glad to bring you joy."
You do remember that it was my idea
to put the salsa on Good Burgers in the first place.
That first commercial, when they paid me, it was, like, $800.
Yeah. - And I was, you know, 12,
something like that. 11. Yeah.
So, that might as well have been a million dollars,
you know what I'm saying? Like,
you know how much candy I was thinking... Yeah! Of course!
...like, $800 is gonna buy me? Of course.
Yeah, I remember booking Barney,
and seeing the episodic checks that would come in,
and you're-- Yeah. Crazy.
And it was just like, I don't even know-- I-- There's not a--
I, I can't even spend this in one day on toys.
♪ This one is a triangle that has three sides ♪
♪ We draw... ♪
Tell us a little bit about some of your acting that you've done.
My acting that I've done, um, has probably been Barney.
That really got me started and, like, with singing, too,
'cause after that, I found a voice teacher.
My paychecks would go back into voice lessons
and acting lessons and guitar lessons,
and I was kind of like an investment.
There was a fire in her
that she wanted to get to the next level.
Barney was my first audition, and I booked it, and that was great.
But then, like, I found it really hard to book other jobs,
and I was so frustrated.
There were a lot of "nos."
And it's also like, I feel like when you are young
and you start out in the industry
and you start making a bunch of money right away,
no one ever tells you that it runs out.
And all of a sudden, you wake up one day, and you're like,
"Oh, shit. This is like... I have to keep working,
if I'm lucky enough to keep working."
- You know? - Yeah, man.
For a long time, it was, you know, a lot of auditioning,
- like, a lot of struggle, whatever. - Mm-hmm. A lot of rejection.
- Ton of rejection. Like-- - Yeah.
And I really considered not wanting to act anymore,
like, if these are the kinds of things I had to go through.
It was almost like I was forced to stay humble,
if you will, you know what I'm saying?
'Cause, like, when I could've been in my most boisterous,
everybody-knows-my-name kinda years, I didn't want that
because I didn't want people to know I was struggling.
You know what I mean?
So, it's kind of the beautiful kind of conundrum of, you know,
the irony of life, if you will. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
I took it personal every time I got a no. Yeah.
'Cause I was like, "There's something wrong with me."
I knew that that was what I wanted to do
instead of going to public school with other kids.
Like, I never felt normal, so doing--
performing in arts made me feel
more comfortable being myself.
Oh, my God!
Yeah, I learned really early on that I could never talk about
what ha-- what I did when I was away when I was back at school.
I think the first day I came back from shooting Mermaids,
there were two little girls that I'd been friends with,
and I went to talk to them and tell them about what I had done.
And they very quickly turned on me
and thought I was bragging. Yeah. Right.
And I was like...
And I just realized that it was not going to go over well.
Mm-hmm. - And so after that,
I never spoke about it ever.
Oh, that must've been so isolating.
I guess so. At the time, I didn't, um--
It didn't-- At the time, you know, I wasn't doing a lot of, uh...
self-analysis at that age, obviously. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
But I do think that I felt-- I was not a child that felt, um,
like I had a group where I belonged, you know?
Mm-hmm. - And I guess that--
I guess maybe, yeah, that would've started then.
As soon as I started auditioning for roles,
the bullying started happening.
The popular girls started writing in the bathroom stalls,
"Demi's a whore," all these nasty things.
And then it got to the point where, like, by the end of the day on a Friday,
I remember going to lunch and feeling like everyone was staring at me.
They had signed a suicide petition
saying that I should kill myself,
and it was passed around and people signed it.
It was so extremely hurtful.
And that was a part of my motivation to follow my dreams
because I knew it would get me out of Texas.
I imagined what it would be like being on Disney Channel.
I was like, "I'm gonna become so famous, they can't escape my name."
The turning point for our family
was when...
Demi went to the Disney Channel to audition for...
the Jonas Brothers show.
And she wanted it so bad.
You know, we had heard so many "nos" on things.
At this point, we had been auditioning for several years,
and they flew us out.
Hi!
I screen tested for it and everything.
Wow! You were here five minutes ago.
I know, but I've dreamed about this for so long,
and I still can't believe that I-- we're here.
I was so excited. I couldn't believe
that they were considering me for the role.
The agent called us and said,
"I'm sorry, Demi didn't get it."
I was so close.
I had gotten my hopes up so high.
Disney said, "Even though you didn't get this one,
we still wanna see you for two other roles."
And we got a phone call. Her agent put it on speaker,
and they said, "Congratulations, Demi.
You are Camp Rock's Mitchie."
That was the name of the character.
♪ Off to the races, I'm going places ♪
♪ Might be a long shot, not gonna waste it ♪
♪ This is the big break ♪
♪ And it's calling my name, yeah ♪
♪ So far, so great ♪
I also booked Sonny with a Chance, so I got both.
♪ Yow! ♪
When you get a "yes" that's really that big,
that was like, "This is gonna change my family's whole life."
Mom!
Ah! This is so exciting!
You know it's not every day
that I hand my beautiful daughter over to show business.
Bye!
The attorney that was on the phone said,
"When are you gonna be moving out here?"
And I said, "Oh, we're not gonna be moving out."
And they-- [chuckles] they laughed at me. They were like,
"No, that's not how this works."
We were so green in this industry.
I just had no idea how any of this worked.
And you know what? That was the easy part of our lives.
I'm not kidding. It got harder from there. Trust me.
Whoa.
Disney comes along and realizes
the idea of being famous is a real hook
to teenage girls in particular.
The Cheetah Girls In Concert Collection.
You can make them sing!
The first is Cheetah Girls, 2003,
about a formation of a girl group.
And then you have High School Musical
and Hannah Montana.
I wrote this song about an 11-year-old girl
who wanted to be a rock star.
These shows about performing
and what it might be like to be famous.
This could lead to something bigger,
like T-shirts, backpacks, lunchboxes.
It's always been a dream of mine to be on a lunchbox!
The big thing that the networks realize
is that these shows in particular
are very merchandise-friendly.
JoJo Siwa!
Entertainer-performer JoJo Siwa can do it all.
She's fun, she's positive, and she's so sparkly!
We're in JoJo heaven,
and now, your little one can be, too,
with the JoJo range at Walmart. Available now!
You have so much merchandise!
It's crazy!
Oh, my God. Yeah.
- You need a bath bomb? - Oh, scented bath bombs?
[laughs] Fully. - What else do we have? We have--
I mean, art kits.
- We got toys, electronics... - Art kits.
- ...merchandise, bows. - Cups.
"Design your own glitter tumblers." Yep.
You have everything!
I have everything you could ever need
for a 7-year-old girl's birthday party.
♪ I'ma come back like a boomerang ♪
Just updated the JoJo Siwa merch room!
It was always really cool to me. It was weird
being produced as an animation almost,
you know what I mean? But it was real,
- it was me, like the-- not a character. - Right.
- But at the same time, same as SpongeBob. - Right.
You know what I mean? Same as Mickey Mouse.
- 'Cause your name is on this, so it's you. - Mm-hmm.
- It's me. Yeah. - It's your likeness. It's not a character
that you're playing, which is totally different
- than what Hannah Montana and other-- - Exactly. You.
- And, and me, yeah. - You, yeah!
Growing up, seeing Hannah Montana on stage with the fans,
and she was singing Nobody's Perfect,
that was like, I wanted to be it.
If you get a Disney show or a Nickelodeon show,
suddenly, your life changes overnight.
You not only become famous,
your image becomes merchandised.
You're in Target aisle.
They send you to the theme parks
to stand on the top of a parade.
If you can sing from Disney's, uh, music label,
as that triple-threat benefit can be,
"Oh, wait, you can act and dance.
Uh, let's put you in front of cameras."
You're such the triple-threat. You dance, you act.
Is singing your number one?
Triple-threat star Ariana Grande
is following the super successful footsteps...
Kinda wanna be a triple threat.
Everyone at that time wanted to be on Disney Channel.
It was the coolest thing to do is to be a Disney channel star.
- Justin. - Keri.
- JC. - Britney.
Ryan.
It was the only way that teens were able
to make it in the industry at a young age
because getting a movie role
that would break a child actor was so rare,
and here came along this...
...massive platform
that could easily transform your life.
I had so much fun filming Camp Rock.
The whole thing was so exciting.
We were all kind of just thrown into this Disney machine.
What up? This is our school room!
This is where we hang out.
We called it Disney High.
You know, we were dating each other,
and there was people that didn't like each other,
and we were all the same age.
And none of us were in high school, so that was our experience of it.
Oh, my God!
I don't think there's been one night where we're not hanging out.
It shows how close we've really gotten with each other.
Everyone in this movie is friends with each other, and that's hard to find.
Ha-ha!
Oh, my gosh!
- [Alyson] Do you remember this? - Oh, yeah!
♪ Hand it up, let's start, start, start ♪
- Oh, it was this. - Why do I know this dance still?
This is embarrassing.
It lives forever in my cellular memory.
Oh, my God! Stop!
Well, Anne Marie.
- Yeah! - Yeah.
- Do you ever talk to her? - No!
- Yeah, I stalked her. - Also-- Okay.
I think she has a baby and, like, is married.
What? - Yeah.
♪ I know you're never gonna wanna ♪
Who out of us have babies?
Giovanni!
I feel like dancing to the beat of a different drum.
Oh, wow.
Hi, I'm Caitlyn, camper today,
top-selling music producer tomorrow. Check me out.
Cool!
Do you the keyboard scene?
- I don't know what you're talking about. - You--
It's like... like this. It's so good!
I play a piano that wasn't plugged in on the day
and didn't know what song they were gonna add.
Oh, no... Yes. - Do you-- And then when I heard it
when the movie came out, I was like, "That's what you chose?"
"I'm supposed to be a talented producer!
That's what you're playing?"
And I'm like, "Wow, she's really good!"
That's the moment.
I remember one time, you followed me into the bathroom.
- In Camp Rock one. - Yeah. Yeah.
And I had been purging,
and you picked up on it because your Spidey senses
were already in tune with those behaviors.
Mm-hmm. - And you followed me in,
and you talked to me.
And I was really grateful that someone...
didn't just, like, shun me in that moment,
um, or shame me at all.
I felt like you were very understanding and--
But, that was definitely a moment that I remember being, like--
One, I was like, "Oh, my God, somebody knows."
Mm-hmm. Like, "Fuck."
But two, I was, like, really grateful that you were there for me.
Yeah, and I felt that support mutually
and feeling like we ha-- we know-- Yeah.
We know that what we're dealing with at the surface level
is just one part of the story of what we're going through each day.
Do you remember doing, like, the photo shoots that we did
for the teen magazines? Yes, like, like Popstar!
and Tiger Beat. Yeah. I remember they removed
every line and airbrushed under my eyes,
almost not recognizing myself, and then immediately going,
"I didn't know that those things were wrong with me before."
And that, like, stuck with me, you know,
for all the subsequent photo shoots of, like,
"Oh, I know that in post, they're gonna fix these five things."
You see yourself, and you're like,
"Oh, my gosh, this is amazing." Yeah.
"I look perfect," you know? And then I look in the mirror,
and I'm like, "Wait, what?" Like-- Yeah.
It's definitely caused a lot of self-esteem
and self-confidence issues.
- Hey, guys! It's me, Demi. - Hello. And Alyson.
Yes, and guess where we are?
London! Yeah, you see the flag?
The Camp Rock press junket in Europe
- was a really, really dark time for me... - Yeah.
- ...with my eating disorder. - Mm-hmm.
And I remember specifically
feeling terrified of my appearance
and being in very, very, very obsessive behaviors
before the press started
and knowing we, we were both
going through a lot. Mm-hmm.
And you know, on the outside, then people were like, "That was amazing!
Look how great you look!" And we're like, "You have no idea
what's going on right now."
Yeah. It was a way to take control of the situation.
Yes, and sometimes also understanding
that is the only sense of safety and control that you have.
Mm-hmm. - It was just like, "I was trained to be
"at your beck and call, and whatever you want from me,
I will provide."
Definitely being easy to work with was the ultimate.
You knew you were gonna get the next job
based on how easy you and your mother were to work with.
Yeah.
And then I was pretty easy, too,
because I just so desperately wanted to be there.
The idea of agency was not something
- that was even... You know what I mean? - Yeah.
Like, it didn't even occur to me, you know?
The right to-- Yeah.
The right to argue or say or disagree and all that stuff
was something that was almost-- Yeah, it was earned.
I was pretty convinced that the more open and available I was,
that makes you better at your job.
Yeah. So the memo I got was
your job requirement is to unzip,
metaphorically speaking, and open yourself up to everything.
- Right. - I, I didn't know boundaries.
Could you step back and let us see the dress?
We're doing a story on fashion.
When you turn yourself into a commodity,
you're talking about validation.
You're talking about feeling less than.
You're talking about losing people, gaining people.
That's a serious mental game... Right.
...that you need to have intact in order to handle it all.
I think I became aware of it,
like, it-- I started noticing the word "brand" in conversations,
and it just came into my consciousness when I was about 15,
whenever I started working on Disney Channel.
You know, like, "What image am I going to put out there of myself?"
It's confusing when you start profiting off of...
your brand, which you confuse with yourself.
And the m-- Like you said,
that's an exhausting part of the industry.
Hey, hey! Hello. How's it going?
I'm chillin'. How are you?
I'm good. Good to see you. It's good to see you, too.
There's all this pressure to create a hit song,
and that takes away from the joy of it,
'cause I'm in the studio second-guessing everything I do and write.
♪ We had it all ♪
Dammit, that wasn't good enough.
Let me give you another.
♪ We had it all ♪
Fuck.
Dammit, why are you beating yourself up?
I didn't like that. Let me take a sip.
♪ Ever hold ♪
♪ Ever holding ♪
- ♪ Ever holding my hand ♪ - Is that it?
Nope, that wasn't it. Eh, yeah, could've been it, but...
Just this cycle that feels like it's never-ending.
♪ Than we were before, I won't forget ♪
♪ I won't forget ♪
♪ About us ♪
Nice. I think we got it.
One more just for shits.
♪ Did you regret ♪
♪ Ever holding my hand ♪
♪ Never forget ♪
♪ Please, don't forget ♪
What was that?! - That's pain.
♪ Ever holding my hand, never again ♪
Yeah.
Where it changed for me was I sat down
with my former management when I was 15,
and they said, "Do you have any songs?" And I played them
five of the songs I'm most proud of,
and they didn't react to them the way that I was hoping.
They were like, "Those are okay.
"Um, let's get you in the studio with
such-and-such artists and writers."
And that, to me, chipped away
at that raw connection to music.
Obviously, my ego was hurt.
It chipped away at my confidence,
and I never turned to music the same way again.
They've got the looks,
personality, and talent to land feature roles
on some of TV's hottest shows.
In the '80s, all of sudden you start having more and more of these child actors
who are becoming stars.
Their formative years are completely and totally impacted
by their being in show business.
It's fun, and it's big bucks.
Yes, big bucks.
4-year-old Cosby Show cutie Raven-Symoné and her father
say that's exactly why she's in this business.
This is fun, but it's also a job,
and she does this to get what?
Mm, paid. - Exactly. Um, there's...
there's, uh, um, college
and things that she wants, so forth like that.
When did you realize it was work?
I knew it was work immediately.
My parents made sure that I understood that this was a job.
I get paid for it, and you do--
You show up professionally.
At what age do you start to fathom what money is?
When you're told how much you're getting paid for the job that you do.
So, I knew at 3 how much I was making, and I understood that this was a job.
If you lose it, you don't make-- you don't make the money.
Right. When did you realize you were the breadwinner for your family?
We call it a family business.
Right. Everybody has a job
within the family business. Okay.
So, nobody likes to say one person is the breadwinner or not.
Right. - Read through those lines.
Oh, Raven!
Hi! How are you?
Good.
Hi!
Booking The Cosby Show, I mean, I can only imagine
the excitement within the family dynamic.
Cousins, grandmas, and aunties.
Tell me how you got this job.
Cosby Show was the number-one television show in America
especially with an African-American cast and so influential
within the fabric of society. Um, you know,
a young girl from Atlanta, Georgia.
Good luck to you, Raven. It's so nice to have you.
So nice to have you, too. Thank you.
I mean, that's the dream of so many Black people at that time.
From the age of 16 months, I knew that my job
was to entertain other people.
I mean, that's a mind thing in itself. Mm-hmm.
You know? Mm-hmm.
One of the youngest Black females
to have a show named after them is a lot of pressure.
Yep, that's me!
Sometimes, though, the parents' dreams
might bleed into the child's... Mm-hmm.
...and you get so enmeshed, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Parents forget that children,
young kids, are performing for their parent.
Mm-hmm.
They're performing for their parents' love and affection...
Mm-hmm. - ...and their "Good job!"
And yes, it's a lot of money.
It's a lot of money, and money does crazy shit.
It's 1920, and Jackie arrives in Los Angeles,
acting very much the role of popular movie star,
but he's still a little boy to grownups.
Jackie Coogan was one of the most famous
child actors in American history.
He made very good money performing alongside Charlie Chaplin,
but he actually wasn't able
to access the bulk of his own money upon becoming an adult.
His parents had frittered away what should have been millions.
So, California passed the first Coogan Law
that required that there be some percentage of money
for a child actor set aside in a trust.
So, in those states where they do exist,
Coogan Laws are really important for child entertainers.
In Florida, they didn't have the same kind of labor laws or whatever.
My mom met this dude, I think, like,
somewhere through the community, like, either church
or just neighborhood shit, like, a book club or something, like,
who claimed to be a good, you know, kinda tax accountant.
Like, will get you out of, like, your tax problems
for, like, the cheap or whatever.
Um, but, he was basically a con artist
and, like, ran away with, like, my entire, like,
biggest earnings up to that point, you know what I mean?
So, by the time it was discovered,
it was towards the end of that Nickelodeon tenure
and the end of, you know, the job-to-job, you know, existence
that I had at that point. And it was, it was devastating
because I, like, discovered it
in front of others, you know what I'm saying?
Like, I was going to buy a house in, you know, Atlanta,
like, my first home kinda shit,
and then he didn't show up with the fuckin' check, you know what I mean?
I'm in these, like, real estate people's office,
like, waiting to sign this paperwork,
and he doesn't bring the check kinda thing.
Uh-huh. It's crazy, going from
rags to riches and back to rags. It's a motherfucker.
It wasn't until the early '20s, I was touring my original music.
One of the dancers I brought with me said
the check bounced,
uh, when I paid them out weekly. And I was like,
"This is impossible because I've been working since I was 7,
and I don't spend any money ever."
And I uncovered
that people in my...
surrounding network had been taking money
without me knowing... Mm.
...for years.
I came from a working-class family,
and I've seen it a couple of times with kids
when we see someone who comes from a working-class family,
and suddenly, they're thrown into,
the kid becomes the breadwinner for the family.
Particularly if you're doing a franchise.
We went from shooting Home Alone one,
nobody cared, but in the course of a year,
Macaulay Culkin became a huge star,
and that was unexpected.
It's not like Harry Potter where you know
that it may be extraordinarily successful.
The new Harry Potter film are looking
for children to play the three main roles.
The first Potter film, in terms of casting,
it was very intense.
I had to put blinders on because that's all I was hearing, everywhere.
You know, you go out on the street, you go into a pub, you go anywhere,
and people are saying, "Who are you gonna cast?
Who's gonna be Harry Potter? Who's gonna be Harry Potter?"
And that, you take that information,
and you bring it back to the actor and the actor's parents.
Gentlemen, this is Rupert. Hi, Rupert!
This is Daniel. - Hi, Daniel.
And this is Emma.
This is gonna get pretty intense.
Daniel, are you going to be a, a saver?
Probably. Um...
I-- No, I don't have any idea.
You nervous?
Yeah, very! I'm, like, so totally nervous.
It's your first day. How does it feel?
It feels absolutely fantastic.
Now, see?
I just felt a tremendous responsibility to the actors,
that they knew what they were getting into.
Yeah, insanely nervous. The amount of people here is amazing.
You're really getting the Hollywood superstar treatment out there.
Yeah, it was, um, weird, but really, really cool.
Kids signed for-- on for, like, five movies.
That's the rest of your life as a child star.
Well, chaps, six down, two to go.
That's gonna be your legacy,
and you have to learn how to live with that.
When I was young, I had some pretty...
rough experiences with other films that I had done.
We would use a dolly shot.
Yeah, what should I do here?
- Do a dolly shot. Yeah. - You think so?
- I don't know. Do you-- Really? Okay. - Yeah. Yeah.
- And what about after this? - Mm...
Once we wrapped, I, I didn't know what was going on.
Suddenly, I realized that parents had to be a big part of it.
I can't have him go home to a really sort of shaky environment
for the sake of a film. It's not worth it.
It was as important to cast the parents as it was to cast the kids.
You're supposed to be interviewing me, but I'm just curious. Is it--
Did you have people supporting you
who wanted to-- I think my--
I love my parents to death,
but they didn't know how to manage that situation.
- Right. - You know, it's a very tricky situation
when I'm the breadwinner.
- Yeah. - And, um, and my parents,
- there was no manual on what to do. - Mm-hmm.
There was one trip that we took,
she was doing a show with the Jonas Brothers one night,
and we'd had interviews and photo shoots and everything all day.
And she was about to go out
on stage, and she said,
"I just need five minutes, Mama. I need five minutes. I just need to sleep."
And I remember trying to wake her up.
She couldn't open her eyes, and I started crying,
and then she started crying.
And here she's about to have to go out on stage. But, it was just,
for me as a mom,
that's when I vowed to say,
"Hey, she's proven herself now.
"Can we pull back a little bit?
"And that's all I'm asking. We're not asking not to do our job.
"We're just saying, you know, can we get her
a little more sleep when she gets there?" That kind of thing.
I was a teenager, and I was just exhausted.
I was being worked into the ground. Right.
We were all just kind of flapping around,
- figuring out how to swim, you know? - Yeah.
It started out me booking Camp Rock,
filming Camp Rock,
and then going back to LA,
filming a season of my TV show. Actually, no.
I filmed Camp Rock.
Then, I worked on my album.
I wrote it, recorded it within about a month.
And then, I went on tour. After tour,
I filmed a season of my TV show Sonny with a Chance.
Then, I filmed Princess Protection Program.
After Princess Protection Program,
I started making another album.
Then, I toured. Then, I filmed Camp Rock 2.
I worked on another album, another season of my TV show.
It was back to back to back to back.
Nobody really knew how to stop the machine.
The, the train just kept moving.
Like, it was, there were never any pauses.
I've been touring almost every day since June 1st,
which I don't know the day today.
But, it is, like, the 5th of September.
Could be the 5th September today. I don't know.
♪ Machine... ♪
It burnt me out.
♪ Machine! ♪
♪ I won't change anything of my life ♪
There was one time where I was in my tour bus,
and I looked out the window, and there were fans chasing the bus,
and they were screaming, and they were so excited
that my bus was showing up to the venue.
And I was just crying.
Like, I could not stop crying.
Like, "Why am I living my dream and doing what I love
"and have these opportunities in front of me,
but I'm so fucking unhappy?"
I would always feel so gross about myself.
I knew that being on Disney Channel,
I was in a coveted position
that millions of people would trade me in a heartbeat,
and just, I felt like I was taking it for granted.
But really, I was just...
just a teenager that was struggling.
Hi, how's it going?
Do you guys have any questions for me? I would love to answer them.
"What's it like to be living my dream?"
Um, I am living my dream.
I don't think I could be asking to do anything else.
I'm, like, having the best time in my life,
and I...
I love it so much. It's incredible.
Camp Rock, I remember a lot more than I do
Camp Rock 2. Camp Rock 2.
And there were, like, entire projects that...
it was like, "Oh! That film." Like-- Yeah. Yeah.
Disassociation.
It's, like, a common thread between--
- All of us. Yep. - All of us.
Please welcome 10-year-old hip-hop dancer Alyson Stoner.
Congratulations on the, uh, on the video. Thank you.
Best Video of the Year.
Yes, that was very exciting.
I'll bet is was exciting!
Yes, it was, it was.
♪ I put my thang down, flip it and reverse it ♪
I know I started dancing around 3 years old,
and I just went straight to, like,
treating it like work,
and so I think I was dissociated
kind of throughout the whole journey.
On the outside, you look like everything's okay.
Yeah. - And then years later,
you can't remember a thing.
You've been working! Yes!
The first time I was in front of a professional camera,
I was 16 months old.
Sixteen-- - Do I remember it? Fuck no.
Do I have the picture of it? Yes. I'm, like, shirtless like this,
and my hair is big and fluffy, but, um, I do not remember it.
♪ You got the right one, baby ♪
Do you remember working on the show?
No. Okay, wow.
It's disappearing every single day. Back in the day,
probably if you would've asked me that when I was 13, my answer was,
"I remember what the floor looked like. I remember the smells."
Mm-hmm. - But even that is a recall from a recall.
Like, nothing is a pure memory right now.
I also wanna talk about that a little bit.
Like, 'cause I don't--
You guest starred on my show Sonny with a Chance.
Yes, I did.
I've completed my own investigation!
And my own conclusion is that you
are a wackadoodle-doo.
I'm a wackadoodle-who?
Doo!
- What?! - Whoa, hey! Okay, girls, girls, girls.
When we first got on the phone
to talk about this project, you were like--
I was like, "I watched you on That's so Raven,
such an inspiration." You were like, "Bitch, I was on your show."
And I was like, "Oh, my God, she was!"
Yeah. - And I--
But it was part of my disassociation that I don't even remember
so much of my show that I was on. Yeah.
But I do remember how difficult I was to work with
because I was in so much pain, and I was hurting.
I mean, you weren't the nicest person. Right.
You weren't like, "Welcome!" You know? You weren't doing that. But,
being the type of person I am
and that I've been in the industry for as long as you,
and I understand the glaze over the eyes...
Mm.
...I didn't hold it against you.
Yeah. - I just was like,
"Something's going on there."
We love you!
Aw, thank you. There we go.
Uh, I took your pen. Sorry.
It just kind of happened so fast.
Our stars have become true global megastars since the first movie.
It must be overwhelming,
and a lot of these kids come from normal backgrounds,
and the pressure can be absolutely excruciating
to the point that some don't cope all that well.
I felt like more of an equal when I did Camp Rock
because the first one, we were all at The Grand.
Okay, the memories are flooding! Um...
I do know that we had a bunch of cast dinners
at the restaurant. Yes.
Then, my career exploded,
and all of a sudden, I was staying at the Four Seasons.
There was definitely a power dynamic and a shift in that.
When the second movie came, it felt really validating
because I had been leveled up, but I was trading connection for success.
I remember that it felt so hard to access you in that way.
Oh yeah. - Like, we had lost that thread of trust.
Mm-hmm. - We had lost that closeness.
It didn't seem maybe like you wanted
- to be reached either at that point. - Mm-hmm.
And so, the last few years of working together
felt really challenging.
The... treatment did feel drastically different.
My heart is racing. [laughs] Oh, no!
Um, I do remember, you know, a sense of walking on eggshells.
- Mm-hmm. - And so there was definitely, like,
f-- a lot of fear of a blow-up.
I'm just trying to get stuff done, but if you guys don't care--
Mitchie!
We all care. You gotta lighten up.
Really? And what will that get us?
I know that we both were going through our own stuff,
but it still didn't give me an excuse to treat anyone poorly,
and so I just wanna genuinely, deeply apologize for like any...
um, stress or any, like, walking on eggshells,
any hurt feelings.
Like, I'm genuinely so sorry for that.
Thank you. And I look back at that time,
and I have, like, profound sadness 'cause I'm like,
"How many people did I treat poorly?"
There are such big feelings that I've had since you told me you were doing this.
I know that things that have happened along the way, though,
certain excess and certain behaviors and certain looking the other way
or certain... ...forcing things
has led to my own rebellion or downfall.
Um...
But, again, those were all my actions.
Those were my reactions. That was my coping mechanisms.
I'm very accountable. I don't blame other people.
Well...
it's hard to say that you don't blame other people
when other people
may have been giving you
substances as a kid. Yeah, yeah.
Because at, at that age, at however old--
How old were you when you were first given something?
I mean, I used to get high with my mom's friend at, like...
10. You know? Right.
And I thought she was so cool, and she would give weed to me and her son.
Wow. - Mm.
I would say it's hard to not blame someone else
when you're 10 years old.
I mean, having a 10-year-old daughter now, I--
I just, I--
It's unfathomable.
Right. - Um...
But that's just how I grew up.
I immediately went right to drugs and alcohol,
uh, in my teens.
I don't remember it feeling like there was any other way
to be happy. Right.
Um, and I would imagine, too, if you felt like
you had absolutely no control over your life,
that's one of the few things you had control over.
I would say, "If you're gonna work me like an adult,
I'm gonna party like an adult."
I had to be so conscious
of everything that I did as a Disney kid.
You obviously couldn't cuss or swear in public.
You couldn't be seen with red Solo cups
because it could insinuate that there's alcohol in there.
I actually remember that, too. Yeah.
If you, if you had a Solo cup on set,
it would be a whole thing. Yeah, it was a whole thing,
- and so I never was photographed-- - So I put--
I put my booze in my Diet Coke can.
[laughs] I put it in a coffee cup! Yes.
And I would say to my assistant, "Can I have a warming Diet Coke, please?"
Teen star Demi Lovato's rise to superstardom has taken a detour
straight to a treatment center.
I knew I couldn't show that I was drinking,
even though I was.
It just made me rebel even more.
There was a moment after the incident, and you left tour where--
The incident, by the way, just so that everyone is aware,
is when I...
had punched...
my backup dancer while on tour in South America.
I got kicked off the tour, basically,
and I'm on my way home, and we have a layover in Dallas,
and I'm like, "When do we land in LA?"
Wait.
It turns out that they had set up
for me to go to treatment in a suburb in Chicago.
It wasn't like a situation where it was like I came to the conclusion
that I needed help. It was like, "I'm getting punished.
This is the end of my career. What did I just do?"
Yeah. And I felt so hopeless.
There were just these...
intense pressures that were incessant.
I mean, I still think about what's on-brand.
Yeah.
That's something that I deal with to this day,
that teenage role model,
and those words should never be put together,
teenage role model.
Together, we'll save the planet, one friend at a time.
There becomes a point where the kids
are not just characters that they're playing.
They are role models.
First starts in the '90s.
Welcome to the Mickey Mouse Club.
It's not just, "I'm an actor on this show."
It becomes, "I am this character.
I am this brand."
And it really shoots off into the stratosphere
with the idea of the superstar pop idol.
That includes, "Buy this stuff."
Or, "Buy what I'm wearing." It becomes unprecedented
in a way that you just couldn't do before.
When we think about child stars,
really what is gonna set them apart
is not that they have the best soprano you've ever heard in a child.
Four sizes. 12 inches, 15 inches,
17 inches, and 19 inches.
It's going to be that the adults around them
are building an empire
that is designed to turn them into, really, a vehicle
for advertising, product placement, and viewership.
At its peak, Hannah Montana was generating
about a billion dollars from many different revenue points,
but that is the type of money
that not just the channel executives pay attention to.
Wall Street analysts ask executives about it on their earnings calls.
The board of the company is aware of it,
and that's a whole different level of pressure and scrutiny.
Disney Best in Breed in the media group. We're gonna talk about that. Bill?
As the conglomerates grow, they become multinational behemoths.
Viacom owns MTV, BET, VH1,
Country Music Network, Nickelodeon.
The CEO of the company in 2010 told me
that there was no more important component than Nickelodeon.
It was the cash cow. It was what drove the entire company.
Good day everyone, and welcome to the Viacom conference call.
We've seen robust audience engagement with kids.
Our strategy is working.
We're investing in content with a disciplined approach.
We have a lot in the pipeline.
Good day, ladies and gentlemen,
and welcome to the Walt Disney
second quarter 2009 earnings conference call.
Be great if you could comment
on how strong you feel like the upcoming content cycle is
at Disney Channel. We've had such a great run,
and particularly in summer with High School Musical
and years ago with Cheetah Girls...
These shows generally run for about four years,
tape about 100 episodes,
and at the beginning, the child star and their family
is extremely grateful, right?
"All of a sudden, I'm a star."
And toward the end, they're starting to think about
what, what my next career move might be,
and they want things that the brand might not want.
You all are gonna freak out.
They want to age into a new type of entertainment.
That was what Miley Cyrus was doing, right?
"I'm not a nerdy 13-year-old anymore.
"I'm becoming an adult.
I have other aspirations than being on Disney Channel."
That became a five-alarm fire for Disney.
When something like that happens, it's a very big operation.
Hundreds of people are, are trying
to keep these properties, really, on track.
Basically, I signed an umbrella deal for everything,
so they owned all my rights to everything except for social media.
We were very smart to be able to keep that separate.
But, if I had, like, a brand deal, I had to get it approved by Nickelodeon.
- Okay. - So, that was always, yeah.
But, they own everything.
When I was 17, it just became something that
I didn't wanna be a part of at all anymore,
would do anything I could to break away from it, get out of it.
Always people would ask me like,
"Are you-- Are you gay?" And I would just be like,
"I don't really, like, think I'm anything."
It was like 2:00 in the morning,
I was on FaceTime with my girlfriend,
and I did a video singing Born This Way.
♪ No matter gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgender life ♪
♪ I'm on the right track, baby, I was born to survive ♪
And I was like, "I think I wanna put this on my Reels Story,"
'cause it was all my close friends. She's like, "Okay, do it."
Boop, that was it. Fell asleep, woke up the next morning
and was like, "Oh, my God!"
I didn't realize, I guess,
that, like, no child star, as still a child star,
has ever come out before.
The president of the network called me
and was like, "What are we gonna tell the kids?"
And I was like, "What do you mean?"
And he was like, "What are we gonna tell kids and parents?" And I was like,
again, like, "What do you mean?"
And he was like, "What are we gonna tell them about this?"
And I was like, "That I'm happy?
"That I, like am...
"What? Like, you want me to tell 'em that I'm making out with a girl?
I'm not gonna tell them that!" Yeah.
But, like, you want me-- Like... I don't know.
And he was like, "Well, you need to have a call with every retailer
and tell 'em that you're not going crazy."
I was like, "Okay. Like, alright, sick." Going crazy.
Came out, came out, going crazy.
And I, I-- So I did, and I had a call with every retailer,
Target, Walmart, JCPenney, Toys R Us, Claire's,
Justice, every retailer at the time.
And Amazon, had a call with them.
Oh, my God, I can't imagine.
And everything, everything after I came out
was, like, changed.
The way they communicated with me changed.
The way they worked with me changed.
The way they developed my work changed. Everything changed.
I remember they had the Kids' Choice Awards,
and I, for the last seven years, like, have done everything
for the Kids' Choice Awards.
Mm-hmm. Performed, hosted,
nominated, won, presented, like done it all.
♪ I'ma come back like a boomerang ♪
A lot of you have been asking me
why I'm not at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards tonight,
and the answer is very simple.
I wasn't invited.
I'm not sure why,
but I just didn't get an invite.
I basically got, like, blackballed from the company.
They said that it was, like, an accident.
And I don't know. It--
I guess I just didn't realize, like,
how young I was. Mm-hmm.
How "scary" it was supposed to be.
But I think it's the best thing that I could've ever done.
I don't think coming out should be a scary thing.
Right. - I wish it wasn't.
I wish there wasn't that stigma around it,
but there is. Right.
My parents were like, "We knew." I was like, "Alright, you knew. Okay, for sure."
- Right. - But, like, if you pass through
the industry mask, you still have to meet
the mask that's the gay person that's like,
"Oh, you not getting past this one to find the real me."
Right. "This is mine to hold."
And that one, no one saw,
probably... yeah.
For-for-for-for-for a long time. Mm-hmm.
There was a moment in my life when I got asked if I wanted to stop the industry.
But it was, like, second season of That's So Raven.
It was, like, third album. Mm-hmm.
And I'm like, "Why would you ask me that question now?
"Just to make me feel bad to say yes
when you know I don't really wanna be here right now?"
I didn't know that you could take time off
because no one told me.
At one point, I played 70 shows in 90 days.
I was gonna have two nights off,
and then, when push came to shove,
they were like, "We need those two days of rehearsals for the movie."
People are going to milk all of your light out of you
because, "You're young and you have the energy,"
but you do not. Right.
You're still a human.
When I look back, when I was working... Mm-hmm.
...I was undiagnosed bipolar.
I dealt with depression. I dealt with all these things,
and I also had a eating disorder... Yeah.
...and was binge drinking on the weekends.
Ooh, girl. And yeah, I was a mess, and--
What age? Underage? This was, yeah, underage.
Damn!
It was the escapism that I was chasing because I couldn't...
find time off.
This is a cry for help.
We're gonna be doing the Lindsay Lohan walk.
We're gonna be doing the Paris Hilton walk.
Lovato's troubles bring to mind the problems of another Disney star.
There's actually research there that shows
people who experience fame have an average lifespan
that's 14 years younger than non-famous people
due to the rate of mental health struggles...
Mm-hmm. - ...and that a famous person
is four times more likely to die by suicide.
And that fame also has, uh, addictive properties,
uh, similar to substances.
So, if that's the case,
why are we hooking a child to a drug
that's fundamentally altering
their brain chemistry and future development?
Sweet 16, screen star Judy Garland
cuts her birthday cake at a party given by film chief Louis B. Mayer
and attended by Hollywood's younger set,
including irrepressible Mickey Rooney.
Judy Garland's daughter Liza Minnelli
had requested that her mother's funeral be held
in as dignified a manner as possible.
Some of the thousands of people who came today...
Finding drugs was easy.
That was the only way I knew how to escape.
But I was dealing with something that I--
that was much bigger than what I could see.
[on phone] I think it's Valium or something, I don't know.
Hollywood is mourning one of its brightest young stars,
23-year-old River Phoenix, who collapsed and died
outside a Hollywood nightclub early on Sunday morning.
Lee Thompson Young was found dead.
Pop star Aaron Carter has died at the age of 34.
The troubled performer grew up in the limelight...
I was so unhappy and in the muck of it all.
[phone] About how old is she?
[phone] We just need to get somebody out here.
[phone] Hang in there, okay? We're on our way. Stay with the patient.
I'm gonna remain on the line with you all the way
until the paramedics arrive, okay?
I get a lot of anxiety
when I think of how close I came to not being here at all.
I just tapped out.
We don't have to start with this one.
I did get you some other ones that I think that you will like,
specifically this one.
Oh, my God! Well, we have to do this one!
That's what I was thinking.
We gotta start with the edges.
I feel like I didn't see you very much
- for a few years of my life. - Yeah.
And I feel like I didn't anybody very much except for the people I was working with,
but especially when you were on Desperate Housewives
and I was doing Sonny with a Chance. Yeah.
How's that one fit?
Oh, I think we're gonna need the next size up.
There is no next size up.
They don't make princess dresses for girls over 7.
She's only 4 and a half.
Oh...
Wow.
Did you ever think,
looking back on being on Desperate Housewives,
- where it was so body shaming... - Yeah.
...that we had a mom with an eating disorder.
I had an eating disorder, and here you were in this position.
Like, did that ever occur to you?
I'm kind of realizing it now, but at the time,
I don't think any of us truly realized
that what was happening
with us was...
an eating disorder.
I don't know, it makes me a little sad.
Yeah, it makes me sad, too.
That this was something
that we were all battling with individually
while standing next to each other.
- Yeah. - Especially because...
...that was originally the focus of my role on Desperate Housewives,
and then, eventually,
turned into the focus of my life.
Mm-hmm. And...
I somehow believed that I was struggling with this
completely and entirely on my own.
Yeah, I felt like I was, too.
Which was just not the case at all.
Mm-mm. We didn't see much of each other 'cause we both had our own schedules.
Right, and we were constantly missing each other.
Yeah. - Constantly.
I mean, if I wasn't working, you were working.
We didn't really get
summers as sisters
once we moved to LA.
I would love to make up for lost time,
even though it's been so long.
Well, look at that! We did it.
So, that's how big the puzzle is, in case you were wondering.
I'm so proud of us.
How do you understand what is real and important
and going to feed you and nourish you,
and what is the candy?
I now am kind of reprogramming my brain.
Yep. - Trying to change things that I learned
- as a child star. - 100%.
It's deprogramming, reprogramming.
Yeah. I hope I'm not overstepping,
but you looked at that overdose and said,
"I will not go down this way.
I won't go down at all. I'm gonna actually rise."
Yeah.
"And I'm gonna come out of this triumphant."
I can't believe how much I respect life
knowing that I disrespected it so many times.
I think there was plenty of my life
where I was a human walking cautionary tale.
I have done shit no one knows I did
that is so crazy that somehow nobody found out about,
and it's because we all had more anonymity
before social media, especially before cell phones.
- Right, right. - Oh, my God!
That's just the world we live in
and a whole new trade. Right.
A whole new world of a job opportunity that's been created.
And then, that goes in with, like, likes or "followers,"
um, how valuable one is.
When I was really young, I was 13, I got addicted to numbers.
And so, I would see my YouTube channel,
and I would see how many views I got,
and I would see how much money it made,
six digits a month easily.
And I would see how many subscribers it gained,
and then I wanted to beat it,
and then I wanted to beat it. Right.
And then I wouldn't beat it, and I would go crazy.
Okay. - Do you do Snapchat?
I don't.
Do you know how many people would die
to see you getting ready in the morning?
Yeah. - You eating lunch,
like, you know what I mean?
I do it on a very extreme level.
I post 250 to 300 things a day on there.
Uh-huh.
- It's nuts. - It's so much work!
It's so much work, and my whole day is filmed.
Gimme your take on this.
Everything I eat is filmed.
Every song I sing in the car is filmed. Everything I do gets picked apart.
Everything I do gets talked about.
There's nothing left for me at the end of the day.
Hi! How are you?
Nice to meet you guys.
- First of all, welcome. Great to see you. - Thank you.
So, Demi, I'm curious, when you first heard
that there were gonna be a bunch of kids here,
and you were gonna be talking to these kids,
what went through your head?
Oh, just joy.
I wish that I had been able to ask questions
to somebody in the industry when I was first starting out.
I didn't know what I was getting myself into...
- Mm-hmm. - ...and I didn't have a mentor.
There wasn't any guidance,
and there definitely is not a manual on how to navigate this industry
at such a young age. Yeah.
Like, obviously, you wanna make a great film, TV show, or commercial,
but what matters is your well-being
and the other things in your life
- like family and friends. - Hmm.
That's what really matters. Yeah.
Today, being in the public eye, social media is so common,
no matter what you do, it's, like, seen right away,
and everyone has something to say about it.
When you were going through it at such a young age, what--
how did you feel about it and how'd you deal with it?
I can't imagine growing up with TikTok at your age.
There's so much pressure to make things go viral
and to look a certain way.
It's just, it's really tough.
Can you tell me what your favorite thing is to watch on TV?
YouTube.
Do you watch TV?
I just watch YouTube shows.
I watch YouTube, and I make TikTok videos for my friends,
like the dances that people do. Sometimes I do that on TikTok.
My favorite thing to watch is YouTube.
- Charli D'Amelio. - MrBeast.
- YouTube. - Minecraft videos.
I like watching, like, them...
showing me what they got at Sephora
or, like, doing-- get--
like, showing their morning routine or night routine.
Can I say somebody who's a kid?
Yes, better if they're a kid. - Ryan.
He has his own show, his own video game, and his own toys.
I don't know if he's really that famous
or companies just like, all-- um, making toys
and video games about him.
Still, that's pretty famous.
That's him, Ryan of Ryan's World.
Ryan is like the Elvis for anyone under the age of 10.
He blew up on YouTube by playing with toys.
He's been on the internet since he was 3.
Okay, let's go!
He makes tens of millions of dollars in his licensing deals.
He's now one of the top-paid YouTubers on the entire planet.
Okay, Ryan, on a scale of one through five, what do you think about
the Hot Wheels Color Shifters Color Splash Science Lab?
Five!
This is a massive multi-billion-dollar industry.
There's over 50 million content creators worldwide.
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to our channel.
According to Goldman Sachs, the content creator industry
is set to be worth a half a trillion dollars in the next two years.
It dwarfs the traditional entertainment industry.
Bye!
Kids are making so much money in an unregulated space.
Yeah! It worries me because there's no Coogan Law for it.
You know, we had protections put in place when I was a child actor
that said a percentage of my money is going to be returned to me,
or given to me at 18.
Therefore, I had, like, a system in place
that guaranteed me to have some sort of financial gain
when I was of legal age.
And to hear that these kids are making tens of millions of dollars,
and there's no Coogan Account for that,
it just scares me because I'm like, who's controlling that money,
and where is it going?
This is an entirely new industry
that's developed really in the past decade.
The real money has only come in the past five to seven years.
Wow, it's nice!
And there are absolutely zero safeguards
or legal protections for children working in this industry.
Hi, Chris? - Hi, Demi!
Hi, how's it going? - It's going well. Thank you.
It's so nice to meet you. So nice to meet you, too.
Tell me a little bit about what you're doing with this legislation.
I was doing this research about family influencers,
and I was seeing that a lot of parents are monetizing their children online,
and it doesn't seem like the children are able to opt out of this.
It is a lot harder when your parents are your bosses
and the set is your house.
It feels like maybe a child
doesn't know when to turn it off. Right.
Because they have to be on all the time, and that can be really damaging.
Right, I have an idea for a new policy concept,
and I went to Washington State legislature.
Hello, Representative Reeves.
A lot of cold calling, cold emailing.
I had a phone script, I had an email script.
Eventually, connected with Representative Kristine Reeves.
I wanted to talk to you about this bill that you're passing,
and what was it that made you wanna get involved?
When I got into politics, my kids were 2 and 4,
and I was walking down the hall in my house,
and I hear my daughter giggling in the mirror going,
"Like and subscribe!" And I just thought, "What on earth?
- Where did she hear that?" - Right.
Here my 7-year-old daughter's got my makeup brushes out,
doing a makeup tutorial in the bathroom mirror,
and I think it just clicked very quickly for me.
The internet is kind of this unregulated
kind of wild, wild West, and if, if not us,
if not parents who are paying attention to this,
who's gonna take care of it?
When I was a child actor, I had a Coogan Account.
Mm-hmm. - Um, which puts money into a reserve
so that you can get it whenever you turn 18.
Well, and that's what this bill does, right?
It proposes that we would create accounts from folks
who are basically monetizing their children on social media
to ensure that those kids have the opportunity
to have some compensation.
The bill also focuses on ensuring
that the kids have the opportunity to go to these platforms
and to request that their likeness be taken down,
to be able to kind of take that power back.
You know, there have to be children out there
who want to make YouTube videos.
- Just for fun. - Yeah, my daughter, apparently.
In the bathroom. Like your daughter.
And so it's not about stopping kids that want to be online.
It's just about protecting them.
Yeah.
Thank you so much. You're amazing.
Oh, well, it's Chris is actually who's amazing.
Like, they, they did a lot of the homework and the research
- to, like, make this all... - Yeah.
...kind of come to fruition.
And so, getting the opportunity to have somebody so young
just believe in government the way that I do, that, you know--
'cause I fundamentally believe government can be a force for good.
House Bill 1627 is a bill to protect kids
who are monetized on family social media accounts.
Taking steps to safeguard a child influencer's earnings
and privacy is a crucial step in minimizing the harm
that hundreds of thousands of children
have already experienced across traditional
and digital media, myself being one of them.
First-of-its-kind law takes effect in Illinois.
SB 764 applies the Coogan Act to modern performers.
34 to 0, the measure passes.
I can't put my fame away.
Like, I can't just say "I don't wanna be famous,"
and that can be a little isolating.
But, I got a second chance at life,
and because of that, I appreciate every day that I have.
You know, I feel like I have a little bit more permission to celebrate the wins.
Alright, hello, everybody!
Demi!
I mean, you know the road better than most
of like how... I'm like...
"How did we even get here? Are we gonna be able to stay here?"
I always think it's getting creative [indistinct].
Do you still have that, like-- Yes, of course.
Okay, good. Oh, good! That makes me feel so not alone.
And it's like, I'm like, "Be present.
Don't be afraid of it disappearing." Yeah. Yeah.
When will we feel stable?
I don't know, but we're gonna keep moving.
do you think stories help you understand yourself?
Yeah.
It's fun to write and draw and do all those stuff.
I've actually made a story about me before.
I feel like if I don't, like, use my imagination
and express myself,
it kind of just is like...
like, I don't really know if there's, like, a word for it,
but, like, when you feel like you're not really, like,
living, I guess?
What is the hardest thing about being a kid?
Probably when, like,
you feel misunderstood.
Like, when nobody knows what you're talking about but you.
I feel that way a lot.
And so, what do you do?
Sometimes, I write down a song in my notebook.
There's always been an intensity
that I've felt since I was a child
and just never wanted to have a diary
because you never know who's gonna find it one day.
I always turn to music as a safe way
for me to feel my emotions,
and it saved me a lot of times.
Okay!
I'm back!
Building that connection to music again is the most important thing
- I can do for myself as an artist. - ♪ Whoa... ♪
♪ It's all gonna happen ♪
♪ But not how you think ♪
So, it's just like lifting that melody a little bit.
I think the second pre-chorus you should extend until it's full length, though.
Okay. - I like a short first pre,
but it'd be nice to go what you'd like...
♪ Da da da, da da da ♪
Oh, that's beautiful! I love that.
♪ We'll be okay, whoa ♪ ♪ We'll be okay ♪
♪ Wide eyes, wild heart ♪
♪ Blowing out candles ♪
♪ Wishing on stars ♪
♪ Stars ♪
- ♪ One day ♪ - Yeah, and then so you're gonna have to...
♪ You'll bring ♪
♪ It's all gonna happen, but not how you think... ♪
If you had to do everything from the very start
all over again, is it worth it?
I try to live by the philosophy of never having regrets.
Mm-hmm.
And I've made some really questionable choices in my life,
but I wouldn't end up where I am in this moment
right now today had I not made all the choices
that I made in my life leading up to this point.
Oh, there we go! Wait, do one more.
- Do your iconic pose! - Wait, what's my iconic pose?
Okay, okay, ready?
Alright. Yes!
♪ Wide eyes ♪
♪ Wild heart ♪
♪ Blowing out candles ♪
♪ Wishing on stars ♪
♪ One day, you'll blink ♪
♪ It's all gonna happen ♪
♪ But not how you can think ♪ You look so beautiful!
♪ Can't stop you, don't want to ♪
♪ Here's what I wish I knew ♪
When I do throw that flare out into the sky,
that flare attracts others.
It's that connection where they understand and know where I was coming from.
Here's to growth, to the amazing memories
that we've made this year!
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two,
one. Happy New Year!
♪ The sharks in the water will teach you to swim ♪
♪ The thorns on the roses will thicken your skin ♪
♪ People might hurt you and break promises ♪
♪ But darling, I promise you this ♪
♪ You'll be okay, kid ♪
♪ You'll okay, kid ♪
♪ You'll be okay ♪
♪ Slow down, deep breath ♪
♪ Don't let the monsters scare you to death ♪
♪ They'll try to tear you apart ♪
♪ But know that you're perfect the way that you are ♪
♪ I know you can't see it now ♪
♪ But someday, it all works out ♪
♪ The sharks in the water will teach you to swim ♪
♪ The thorns on the roses will thicken your skin ♪
♪ People might hurt you and break promises ♪
♪ But, darling, I promise you this ♪
♪ You'll be okay, kid ♪
♪ You'll make it like I did ♪
♪ You'll be okay, kid ♪
♪ You'll be okay ♪