"Always Thought He Would End Up In Jail": People Who Went To School With Celebrities Reveal What They Were Like Back Then

Regardless of what they were like, one advantage many of these stars had is that they can still claim to start out like “regular” people. These days, a common refrain when it comes to new actors or musicians is that they are simply just “nepo babies,” meaning they only achieved fame through nepotism. Take a new, “indie” artist you have found and go to their Wikipedia page. See if their parents’ names are blue.

Obviously, insider connections are generally always good, but there is a silver lining to having humble beginnings, as it might mean a person is more grounded and less likely to absolutely lose their mind when they become rich. Nicholas Cage, if you haven’t noticed, has been on an acting tear lately, due to his massive tax debt. He reportedly owed the IRS over $14 million dollars, which he paid off by taking on every role anyone would give him. 

Fortunately, most of the people on this list actually went to high school and didn’t spend their time acting. Child stars are particularly at risk, suddenly working and subject to all sorts of attention. The result tends to be addiction later in life, as well as a feeling of estrangement from the adults who nominally should be protecting them. All too often, parents push their kids to be stars, with disastrous results. 

While historically, certain people have enjoyed an elevated status, national heroes, athletes, and so on, the idea of a celebrity is quite recent, in fact, many sociologists believe it’s really only been around for the last century. Mass media and the general spread of images around the world allow certain people to now be recognized across multiple continents, even in cases where people do not speak the same language or even consume their creative endeavors. 

These days, we combine fame and fortune, though in the past a person could be well-known, while still relatively poor. Despite this, celebrities are relatively modest compared to “real” wealth, for example, the Forbes top 100 cumulatively have a net worth of “just” $4.5 billion in 2010. This still puts them squarely ahead of the vast majority of the world, but fame perhaps isn’t the only road to riches. 

Of course, the downside is that many celebrities often face various risks. First of all, the aforementioned addictions, but stalking and celebrity worship, are still quite common, making it hard for some stars to have any semi-balance of a normal life. The statistics speak for themselves, as stars actually tend to die younger than the majority of the population. So at least they got a “normal” high school experience. If you want to hear more about celebs before they were famous, click here, and here.