7 Child Stars Who Crashed and Burned

Fame didn't work out so well for them
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 2, 2014 8:34 AM CST
7 Child Stars Who Crashed and Burned
Leif Garrett, 48, is shown after he was arrested for allegedly carrying heroin into a Los Angeles subway station in a Feb. 3, 2010, booking photo.   (AP Photo/Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept.)

For every Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes making constant headlines, there's a lesser-known child star (Pippi Longstocking, anyone?) getting in their own troubles. Radar rounds up 20 ex-child stars who "flamed out spectacularly." A sampling:

  • Jodie Sweetin: After playing Stephanie on Full House, she struggled with drugs and alcohol—and even once snorted meth at the premiere of an Olsen twins movie, she admitted in her memoir.
  • Jaimee Foxworth: After being written out of her role as Judy Winslow on Family Matters, she started doing porn and got addicted to drugs; she ended up telling the story on Celebrity Rehab.

  • Leif Garrett: Just take a look at one of his mug shots in the gallery (this one is from a 2010 incident in which he allegedly carried heroin into a Los Angeles subway station) to see that he doesn't exactly look like the teen idol he once was. And that's not the only time he's been arrested since his 1970s heyday.
  • Erin Moran: She played Joanie Cunningham on Happy Days, but ended up living in a trailer park after she lost her home to foreclosure.
  • Tatum O'Neal: She won an Oscar at age 10, but has since been better known for the drama between her and her father Ryan O'Neal, and her 2008 arrest on crack and cocaine charges.
  • Edward Furlong: He's been in and out of rehab—and in trouble with the law—since his Terminator teen heartthrob days, thanks to heroin and cocaine addictions and alleged domestic violence.
  • Orlando Brown: The former Disney actor from That's So Raven has been arrested multiple times for allegations of DUI, public intoxication, and threatening to kill a woman and her family, among other things.
Click for the complete list, including a picture of what once-adorable Andy Keaton from Family Ties looks like now, or check out 7 child stars who ditched showbiz. (More Erin Moran stories.)

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