From Jackie Coogan to Drew Barrymore, to Jennette Mccurdy and Amanda Bynes, there has been an increase in issues arising from children being raised in Hollywood. Cases of on-set abuse, children being pitted against each other, overworking, and legal guardians stealing money from their children are all just small fractions of issues that these actors have brought to light in recent years. 

On-set abuse is nothing strange to the children who have worked on set. Bradley Steven Perry, a former Disney star on Goodluck Charlie, remembered on his podcast, Hit The Brake, the first time he was screamed at by a director on set as a child, “Think back on it now like how the fuck could he ever talk to a nine-year-old like yeah it’s quite insane.” 

On that same podcast former Disney star Karan Brar, star of the Disney show Jesse as well as Diary of a wimpy kid spoke out against directors he was working with at the time. “he makes it very clear that like you know you hold no social currency for him” Brar recounts. “so like he doesn’t care to like to engage with you or treat you like a human being like you were just a prop” 

Brar also spoke out on how this treatment affected his own self-worth growing up.“Throughout my teens, I had unchecked undiagnosed mental ​​illness I just I was dealing with severe anxiety and severe depression” Karan Brar explains, “so like it’s not even that I’d be like whoa okay like that guy yelled at me and that was like really rough it’s just like I would shut down and it was like two forces fighting against each other internally whereas like one was like you need to get up and you need to say your line and just like do your job and the other half was like I need to die.” This treatment is not uncommon and has been recently exposed by several other child stars all across networks “There was some switch that flipped in me when I was like 13 or 14 which is like you are, not good enough like you are not as good as the other people on this show.” Brar says. “like you need to work harder and so as I got older that kind of like transitioned into like an imposter syndrome.”