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From the red carpet to the dumpster...
These celebrities went from 100 to 0. After achieving success and fame and enjoying the money that comes with it, these stars lost it all and ended up living on the streets! Learn about their heart-breaking homeless stories here... (©BANG Showbiz)
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Bobby Driscoll
Bobby Driscoll (1939-1968) rose to fame as a child star and even won an Academy Award for Outstanding Juvenile Actor for his role in ‘The Window’, in 1949. Bobby went on to appear in projects like ‘Peter Pan’ and ‘Frontier Justice’, while he was battling addiction at the same time. On March 30, 1968, two kids found Bobby’s body laying on a cot in an abandoned building complex, located in Manhattan, New York, surrounded by empty beer bottles and religious pamphlets. Authorities revealed that the star died penniless and of heart failure, as a result of substance abuse. He was just 31 and his body was never claimed. (©BANG Showbiz)
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Brett Butler
Brett Butler, 65, earned four Golden Globe nominations for her role as Grace Kelly in the series ‘Grace Under Fire’, which ran from 1993 to 1998. Brett struggled with substance abuse, which resulted in her living for a time in a homeless shelter in Georgia. In a 2011 interview with 'Entertainment Tonight', Brett opened up about how her life changed from one day to the other. She said: “I almost died like Michael Jackson. I was dying of addiction ... I don’t think about what I survived. I hope I forgive, I hope I’m forgiven, and I’m just really glad that I think things are funny and there’s no end to that.” Butler was eventually able to make a comeback. She appeared in two episodes of ‘The Walking Dead’, later on, she appeared on ‘The Morning Show’, and more recently, in 2023, appeared in ‘Fantasy Island’. (©BANG Showbiz)
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Halle Berry
The 'X-Men' actress struggled for money at the start of her career. In an interview with PEOPLE magazine Halle revealed that after she moved out of her parents’ house aged 21, she stayed in a homeless shelter in New York. She revealed: "I took my modelling money and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve got some cash!’ When you get to New York, three months later I was out of cash and I called my mother and asked her to send me some money and she said no." However, the Academy Awards winner insists the experience made her stronger. She added: "That’s probably one of the best things [my mother] did for me because it taught me. She said, ‘If you want to be there, then you be there. You work it out.’ And I had to work it out. And shelter life was part of figuring it out for a minute.” (©BANG Showbiz)
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Erin Moran
Erin Moran played Joannie Cunningham on hit sitcom ‘Happy Days’ from 1974 to 1984. At the age of 56, the actress was found dead on August 2017 in her husband Steven Fleischmann’s mother’s trailer. At the time, Variety reported that she fell into homelessness as "she was reportedly kicked out of her trailer-park home in Indiana because of her hard-partying ways". Actor Paul Petersen, Moran’s long-time friend, took to Facebook to post a heart-breaking message about her passing. He wrote: “We did our best with the resources available to us, but it was a very dark room. Some don’t find the light switch in time.” (©BANG Showbiz)
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Danny Bonaduce
Danny Bonaduce became famous as a child actor when he played Danny Partridge in 1970s sitcom ‘The Partridge Family'. As an adult, Danny struggled with substance abuse, and eventually found himself homeless after losing everything. In 2013, Bonaduce, 63, appeared on an episode of ‘Oprah: Where Are They Now?’, to share his tragic tale. He said: "I lived right behind this dumpster, but I lived in my car. I'd wake up, kind of wipe my eyes, and I'd go right through the little arch and I'd be in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater, where everybody's footprints are. I was still famous and people had no idea I lived behind the dumpster... I'd be taking pictures with people and signing autographs. It was totally embarrassing to be famous and homeless." Bonaduce has now got his life back on track and has been working as a radio DJ and is married. (©BANG Showbiz)
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Willie Aames
Willie Aames became a household name at the age of 17 when he landed roles in TV shows 'Eight Is Enough’ and ‘Charles in Charge’. Sadly, his life took an unexpected twist and he eventually faced bankruptcy. Aames, now 62, spoke about those difficult times in a 2010 interview with 'Entertainment Tonight'. He recalled: "At the very peak [of 'Eight Is Enough'] I was making a little over a million dollars a year. Then suddenly there was no job, no bank account, no wife, no child. I never dreamt it could happen that fast. I found myself virtually homeless. I stayed with friends when I could, slept in parking garages or slept in the park. It was shameful. I remember laying underneath the bushes thinking, 'Is this how it turns out? Is this how my life really turns out?'" Aames was eventually able to recover financially. He reconnected with his daughter Harleigh and has worked as a financial consultant ever since. (©BANG Showbiz)
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Margot Kidder
Margot Kidder (1948-2018) will forever be remembered for playing roving reporter Louis Lane in the 1978 film ‘Superman’ and the subsequent sequels opposite Christopher Reeve as the DC Comics hero. Sadly, Margot lived with bipolar disorder which ultimately resulted in her falling into homelessness. In 1996, the actress spoke to PEOPLE, recalling the most turbulent part of her life. She said: “I was like one of those ladies you see talking to the space aliens on the street corner in New York. I slept in yards and on porches in a state of fear.” Margot also revealed that another homeless person took care of her for some time, allowing her to sleep in his cardboard shack and feeding her. Margot then recalled a time when another homeless person tried to sexually abuse her, but fortunately he let her go. Eventually, after such a tragic life, Kidder was able to find a home again, in Livingston, Montana, where she passed on May 13, 2018, at 69. The autopsy reports determined an alcohol and drug overdose as the cause of her death. (©BANG Showbiz)
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Sylvester Stallone
The 76-year-old actor became one of the most bankable box office stars due to his roles in ‘Rocky’ and 'Rambo' but he lived at a bus station before his big break. He found himself in this situation after being kicked out of his New York apartment. Speaking to Total Film magazine, he said: “I was broke and basically sleeping in the Port Authority bus station for three weeks straight. Instead of doing something desperate, I worked for two days for $200 and got myself out of the bus station." (©BANG Showbiz)
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Chris Pratt
Before Chris Pratt became the Hollywood action hero we all know and love today, the actor was sleeping in a van. At the time, Pratt was living in Maui, Hawaii, and working whichever minimum-wage job he could find. He remembers it as a “pretty awesome place to be homeless". He said: "I worked minimal hours, 15-20 hours per week, just enough to cover gas, food and fishing supplies. You know, it was charming time." Chris was 19 and working as a waiter in a Bubba Gump Shrimp, when actress-and-director Rae Dawn Chong, was casting for ‘Cursed Part 3’ and asked the handsome waiter if he would come to LA for an audition. Pratt got the role, and is now one of the most bankable box office stars in Hollywood thanks to his leading man roles in the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and 'Jurassic World' franchises. (©BANG Showbiz)
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Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez is another star who had a difficult start and had to live on the streets before her rise to fame. J.Lo had always wanted to be a dancer and after an argument with her mother, who wanted her to go to college instead, she moved out of her family home and onto a sofa at a dance studio. She said: “I was homeless, but I told her, ‘This is what I have to do.' The 'Jenny from the Block' star then landed a contract as a backing dancer with Janet Jackson, and the rest is history she is now one of the biggest music and Hollywood stars in the world. (©BANG Showbiz)
These celebrities went from 100 to 0.
