7 child stars who have opened up about having financial troubles

"Even Stevens" and "Kim Possible" actress Christy Carlson Romano got candid about her finances in an August 2021 YouTube video titled "How I Lost All My Money."

She said she spent money on "big-ticket items" like Ralph Lauren clothes, a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon, and a psychic who she said managed to get a lot of money from her.

"I was using buying things and money as a weapon," Romano said. "I felt like if I could just buy certain things, I would feel better or if I just lived a certain lifestyle."

Romano added that she had book and record deals that garnered about $1 million one year, but she spent it all in the same year.

"My biggest thing about child actors, you aren't told that the work is going to slow down," Romano said. "In fact, I was told the opposite, specifically by my mom, some of my team, even my money manager at the time."

Romano said that she regretted not investing the money she earned as a child star or learning how to manage her finances.

"I am not a millionaire in any way, shape or form. I'm just a mom monetizing my channel, doing sponsored content, having fun, working when I can," Romano said.

The one-time teen pop star spoke to Us Weekly in 2016 about the financially "terrible position" he was in.

"When I turned 18, I got hit with all those taxes. I filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy last year; now I'm already over $100,000 in debt," he said.

In an interview on the Oprah Winfrey Network that same year, Carter also said that he self-medicated with drugs and alcohol to treat his depression after his parents divorced in 2004.

"I couldn't dwell on it," he said. "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."

After he "went broke" and his career stalled, Carter turned to drugs and alcohol. He eventually realized he needed help and checked into the Betty Ford Center.

In a 2016 interview with Complex, Sweetin said she was an alcoholic at 14 years old and used to spend $10,000 at a time on drugs with royalty checks from "Full House," which she starred on from 1987 to 1995.

She has been sober since 2008 and reprised her role as Stephanie Tanner on "Fuller House" from 2016 to 2020.

"I speak about my experience growing up in the entertainment business, what my life was like after, some of the struggles and things I went through and where my life is today," Sweetin told People magazine in 2020. "It's a story with a message of second chances and turning things around and being able to overcome some adversity."

After starring in classic movies such as "The Parent Trap" and "Mean Girls," Lohan had a tumultuous few years.

She had a series of run-ins with the law, spent time in rehab, and largely disappeared from the spotlight in the early 2010s aside from a few guest spots on TV shows.

In 2012, the IRS placed a tax lien on her California home due to unpaid federal income taxes from 2009, according to court documents obtained by E! News. She reportedly settled the tax lein with a payment of $93,701.57.

"We're not commenting on her personal financial situation," Lohan's representative told E! News in 2012.

In 2019, Lohan spoke to Variety about grappling with early fame for an article titled "Lindsay Lohan Wants You to Forget Her Past."

"The first time I was in a tabloid, I was like, 'Oh, my God, I feel like Britney Spears!' because she was in a tabloid and I felt cool," she said. "Little did I know what would happen from there."

She is set to return to acting later this year in the Netflix film "Falling for Christmas," having signed a deal with the streaming service, according to Variety.

Malone, who starred in "Contact" and "Stepmom" (and later in "The Hunger Games" adaptations), alleged in court documents that her mother Deborah had mishandled her money through "excessive spending and mismanagement," AP News reported in 2000.

"It came to a certain point that money and family didn't mix," Malone told People magazine in 2001.

Deborah told the magazine that she regretted the way she'd handled her daughter's finances.

"I listened to too much advice from people who didn't always have our best interest at heart," Deborah Malone said. "I need to make my own way. It is a degrading situation to be in, to have a daughter who makes a quarter of a million dollars when you've never made over $10,000."

The mother-daughter pair seems to have made amends, with Malone posting a photo on Instagram in 2018 of herself with Deborah and her son.

"Not long after this picture was taken, I moved in with her and her boyfriend when I became a single mom overnight," she captioned the photo. "And she helped and supported me [through] one of the hardest transitions I've ever been through. And slowly but surely she has become the best friend I have ever had. I'm in awe of what time allows us and what time teaches us. I'm in awe of the mother-daughter bond that spans decades and lifetimes and waits for the perfect moment to bloom."

Before Britney Spears was a teen idol with hits like "...Baby One More Time," the singer starred on "The Mickey Mouse Club" alongside other future hitmakers like Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera.

However, Spears' flourishing career hit a speed bump when she had a series of highly publicized incidents that made people question her mental health, Insider's Erin McDowell reported.

Spears was committed to a psychiatric hospital on two occasions, after which her father, Jamie Spears, petitioned for an emergency "temporary conservatorship" to be placed on the singer in 2008. The conservatorship ended up lasting 13 years and restricted Spears' access to her finances and limited her agency over personal decisions regarding her health.

After a 2021 hearing, during which Britney Spears was able to speak directly with a judge for the first time in open court, the singer asked the court to end her conservatorship and described being abused, controlled, and monitored intensively by her father.

"I just want my life back. It's been 13 years, and it's enough. It's been a long time since I've owned my money," Spears said. "I would honestly like to sue my family, to be totally honest with you. I also would like to be able to share my story with the world, and what they did to me, instead of it being a hush-hush secret to benefit all of them."

Spears was freed from her conservatorship in November 2021.