Stars Who Emancipated Themselves From Toxic Parents

The trajectory for a successful star is almost a cliché. 1) Talented kid gets cast in movies, makes a ton of money. 2) The kid's parents watch over the money on behalf of their little meal ticket because they're a minor. 3) Parents can't handle the lure of all that cash and squander it. 4) The kid finds out that the parent(s) blew through all the money they sacrificed their childhood to earn. 5) Kid files for and receives "legal emancipation," which means they become adults in the eyes of the law, and their parents have no control over them.

Obviously, it's terrible when a child has to involve a judge to keep their parents out of their lives and their pockets, but for some celebrities, this last resort was the best option. Not only does emancipation put a stop to potential financial crimes, it also provides distance from a parent who may have been toxic in far worse ways. Here are some former child stars who legally separated from Mom and Dad.

Culkin was the biggest child star of the early 1990s. He starred in, and totally carried, the 1990 Christmas classic Home Alone, which became the highest-grossing comedy of all time. Culkin followed it up with hits such as Home Alone 2, Richie Rich, and My Girl, amassing as much as $50 million in earnings by the time puberty reared its ugly head. 

In 1995, Culkin's parents, Patricia Brentrup and Kit Culkin, split up after 20 years, reported the Los Angeles Times. They weren't married, so it made for tricky legal proceedings when it came to custody of Macaulay and his siblings, as well as control of the young star's career and finances — his parents were also his managers. 

That was all moot in 1997, when Macaulay struck out with his own divorce proceedings and financial claims. According to People, the 16-year-old was granted emancipation, citing his father's mismanagement of his earnings and mistreatment (He allegedly made the young millionaire sleep on the couch.) Culkin was granted his independence and what remained of his money — about $17 million.

In the wake of the #metoo and TimesUp movement, Charmed and Grindhouse star Rose McGowan has re-emerged with a second career as one of the "Silence Breakers" in the fight against Hollywood's toxic masculinity and rape culture. But she's been fighting back for years against the powers that dared to contain her. 

As detailed in her 2018 memoir, Brave, McGowan was raised by the Children of God, aka The family, an international religious organization that once counted other celebrities such as River Phoenix and Joaquin Phoenix as members. The organization is commonly referred to as a cult, and a particularly terrible one that allegedly encourages pedophilia and manipulates young female members for recruitment purposes. McGowan was raised within the Children of God group in Italy and claims she struggled to have her basic needs met, such as food and shelter. She said her family moved to the United States when she was older, which is when her father allegedly grew verbally abusive and her mother grew absent. At age 15, McGowan legally emancipated herself from her parents.

At a certain point in time, Edward Furlong was the next Johnny Depp or River Phoenix — a teen idol who had the acting talent to go far in films. He's best known for portraying humanity's future savior, John Connor, in 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day. He also dazzled in American Heart, American History X, and Before and After. Today, he's better known for his rocky personal life, which includes multiple domestic violence allegations and a restraining order violation. This kind of personal turmoil has followed him around since childhood. 

According to Entertainment Weekly, Furlong was reportedly discovered by a casting director in 1990 while hanging out at the Pasadena Boys Club. At the time, his mother had split up with Furlong's stepfather and left her son to live with her siblings. From 1991 to 1994, which just so happened to coincide with the rise of Furlong's career, several different parties fought to be his guardian, including his mother, his aunt, a court-appointed attorney, and a woman 13 years his elder named Jacqueline Domac, who was Furlong's stand-in on Terminator 2, then his tutor, then his girlfriend. Furlong eventually rejected them all, applying for and receiving legal emancipation before he turned 18.

Drew Barrymore is now best known as the winsome and charming star of The Wedding Singer, 50 First Dates, and, okay, The Santa Clarita Diet. We've had her around for so long that it's easy to forget that she was also a child star. Barrymore played the adorable Gertie in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and a not-so-adorable fire starter in Firestarter. She came from a long line of entertainment Barrymores, a venerable family that produced four generations of stage and screen talent, including Lionel and Ethel Barrymore. But a famous family tree doesn't always make for a stable family line, nor a stable life.

Drew's father, John Barrymore, was apparently of the absentee variety, leaving his little girl in the care of her mother, wild child Jaid Barrymore, who allegedly squandered her daughter's earnings and took her to Studio 54 when she was a child, according to Radar Online. All of that left Drew flailing. As detailed in her almost unbelievable memoir, Little Girl Lost, Drew was so addicted to booze, drugs, and partying that she'd already been to rehab twice by the age of 13. After completing the program, she legally emancipated herself from her troubled mother at age 14. 

Decades have passed, but Drew still supports her mother financially. "I am grateful to this woman for bringing me into this world, and it would crush me to know she was in need anywhere," she wrote in her second memoir, Wildflower (via Vulture). "It is not who I am to harbor any anger for the fact that our life together was so incredibly unorthodox."