If your dad was Will Smith, would you want out? That was the rumor going around this week when Smith’s son—and co-star in the upcoming film After Earth—joked about getting emancipated from his parents so that he could have his own house. The Smith family eventually tamped down the rumors on the Ellen show, so it seems Jaden won’t be joining the illustrious club of child stars who’ve divorced their parents. From Alicia Silverstone to Corey Feldman, a look at the most famous emancipated young people—and where they’ve ended up.
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The actress became legally emancipated from her parents at age 15, four years before she starred in Clueless, so that she could meet the frenetic schedule of being a young, in-demand actress. She’s turned out just fine; Silverstone married her long-term boyfriend in 2005 and has published a vegan cookbook.
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You’d never believe it, but Kurt Cobain’s rock star widow had a bit of a messy childhood. After being arrested for stealing a T-shirt at age 14, Love spent time in a juvenile correctional facility and various foster homes before gaining legal emancipation from her parents at age 16. She moved to Portland and became a stripper, but was able to put herself through a few semesters of college with a small trust fund given to her by her adoptive grandparents. In an ironic twist, Courtney Love’s own daughter Frances Bean emancipated herself from Love in 2011.
The 1980s child star, best known for his roles in cult classics like The Goonies and Stand by Me, split up from Mom and Dad at the tender age of 14 after going to the Screen Actors and finding out how just much money he had earned for his work. Feldman has said he had $40,000 left from his paychecks, but that his father demanded the money as a repayment for the time he’d spent helping Feldman on his films, putting the young actor into thousands of dollars of debt as a teenager.
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Culkin gained legal emancipation from his parents during their long custody battle for their seven children. His parents had never married. Culkin argued in court that his father made him sleep on the couch and mismanaged the millions of dollars he’d earned from his starring role in the Home Alone series. He won emancipation and his $17 million fortune at the age of 16.
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Dushku’s emancipation story is a bit less dramatic than those of her child peers. She gained emancipation at 17, while she was working on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in order to sidestep child labor laws and work longer hours.
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Carter, the younger brother of Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter, has said he wanted to get out of his home after his parents’ messy divorce. After he became a tween pop sensation in the early 2000s, he fired his mother—who was working as his manager—in 2003, and testified that she had stolen $100,000 that was owed to him. He became legally emancipated from his parents shortly after, at the age of 16.
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Like Dushku, the Enlightened star didn’t have any major familial crises or meltdowns; she just wanted to work longer hours on TV shows and films like Blue Velvet. She graduated from high school early at age 16, and gained emancipation that same year.
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Lewis swears she didn’t emancipate herself at age 14 to get away from her parents—just so she could work harder. “My parents are just the best,” Lewis has said. She dropped out of high school at 14 but passed her equivalency test and gained emancipation all in the same year, so she could work longer hours as a child actress.
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Williams’s parents weren’t exactly crazy about the idea of their daughter becoming a child actress, so Williams legally split up with them at age 15. She never finished high school—but she did land a role on Dawson’s Creek.
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Barrymore might just be the ultimate child star, so it’s only fitting that she also emancipated herself. After hitting success at a very early age, the E.T. star landed in rehab when she was 13, and her cocaine addiction and hard-partying reputation were obsessively covered in the press. After a time spent in and out of various rehab centers, Barrymore filed for emancipation in juvenile court at age 15 and won.
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