All language subtitles for Child Star 2024

- [child 1] Hi, Mr. Camera Guy.
- [videographer] Hi!

[child 1] That's a tiny little seat.

[gasps] It's fluffy!

[♪ gentle music playing]

This is a small chair.

[Nicola Marsh] In a couple of seconds,

- I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions.
- Okay.

- [Nicola] And there's no wrong answer.
- 'Kay.

[Nicola] Tell me, if you could do
anything when you're older,

- what do you wanna do? What's your thing?
- I wanna be a famous singer.

Well, it's kind of complicated.

A famous soccer player.

I wanna be an actor.

I really love to act,

but I also really would love
to teach little kids.

When I grow up,
I would like to be a gamer.

Uh...

a model.

[Nicola] Do you know what being famous is?

Kinda like being, like, popular at school,

but, like, times 1,000.

I think it's, yeah, fun

and sort of in the middle of good and bad.

You get a lot of money.

Yeah, everyone knows you.
Everyone likes you.

Everyone wants to be your friend.

You get a bunch of attention.

And you get to travel the world

and do stuff in other places.

Everybody would know you
because you don't wanna be a lone wolf!

What's bad about it is that
you can get very egotistica...

egotistical, I think?

People would try to take photos of you
and post them on Internet.

Lots of people crowd around you,

and sometimes it makes you nervous.

It's, it's kinda hard, if you're famous,
having your own life.

[Nicola]
Do you like it when people film you?

How does it feel now?
You're doing it right now.

I'm a little bit nervous

and a little bit happy.

[birds chirping]

[Nicola] On a scale of one to 10,
how much are you hating me filming you?

[unzipping bag]

- [Demi Lovato] Um... I don't mind.
- [quiet rummaging]

[Nicola] Be honest.

I think on a scale of one to 10,
it's like an eight.

- [Nicola] Feels like a nine.
- [laughing]

[Demi] I think I just
don't like being on camera.

- [rummaging]
- [Nicola] Why?

- [pops lipstick]
- I think that...

like, being on camera

makes a lot of
my body image issues come up

and...

I'm constantly like, when I'm...

when I'm on camera,
I'm just hyper-aware of that.

And...

yeah, it just makes me
a little uncomfortable.

[♪ gentle music playing]

When I was a kid,
I was so close with my great-grandparents.

They were my world.
I just loved them so much.

They had these two recliner chairs
that they would sit in

and we would watch TV together.

I just have this memory of
Shirley Temple appearing on their TV.

- [♪ Shirley Temple singing]
- And I thought,

"I'm going to be the next Shirley Temple.

"I'm gonna be the next child star.

If she can do it, I can do it."

♪ ...of the sea,
we'll join in the jamboree ♪

- ♪ At the Codfish Ball ♪
- [Demi] And I did.

[kids] Barney!

- ♪ Mirror, mirror, mirror ♪
- [audio warbling]

I've dreamed about this for so long!

[crowd cheering]

[crowd screaming]

- Thank you!
- Demi Lovato.

Some girl screamed and said my name,
and I was like...

- [overlapping crowd cheering]
- [cacophony]

[reporter] News about Demi Lovato.

- [glass shatters]
- [speaker] How could you?

Sorry. We're gonna need a lot more work.

- [shutter snaps]
- We're not giving up.

- [increasing crowd cheering]
- I'm serious.

[cacophony intensifies]

- [shutter snaps]
- [cacophony fades out]

I didn't realize that it would

have such a negative impact
on my mental health.

And, unfortunately,
sometimes that looks explosive,

like an incident where you punch
your backup dancer on an airplane

or you overdose from heroin.

[♪ bright music playing]

♪

♪

[♪ music fades out]

I really thought I had all the answers

and I thought I had gone through so much

that I knew everything.
And now, I look at other people,

and I'm like, "I know nothing,

and the only way I'm gonna
get answers is to listen."

When I'm performing in a show,

and I see an empty seat, like,
it really fucks with me.

Even on stage.
Like, I'll see an empty seat,

and I'm like, "Ugh, I'm not good enough."

- [speaker] Really?
- You know? Yeah. It's just like,

it's this belief that was instilled in me

as a, as a young performer...

that... I, I...

looked at my success as my self-worth.

- [speaker] Mm-hmm.
- You know?

I had a really hard time
differentiating the two.

- [speaker] Mm-hmm.
- And I dealt with...

a lot of need for external validation,

um, because I was equating

- my success to my self-worth.
- [speaker] Mm-hmm.

Um, I was just wondering if you
ever experienced any of that

and what that would've been
like for you if you did.

Yeah, I mean, that's wild to hear,
you know what I mean?

Because you are so, like, beloved.
You know what I mean? Like, you have

fanatics, you know what I mean?
And, like, those people have those things

because it's earned, you know what I mean?
You're a giant ball of talent,

but, like, to see that one
inkling of a thing like that

can irk a person like that is...

It's interesting to, like, you know,
discuss because...

yeah, I mean, I've had those
same kind of experiences where

there's a chip in the armor,
you know what I mean?

And it's like,
"Shit, everything's not perfect,"

or "I'm not perfect enough."

So, you, you migrate towards those
that are going to give you

that, you know, validation,
whether that, you know,

it's good for you or not,

- you know what I'm saying?
- [Demi] Yeah.

So, it's not a normal existence to have
somebody in your family be famous,

you know what I mean? And, like,

that's just a, a weird thing that,
like, you have to know...

You don't have to, but it's good to know
what you're signing up for.

- [♪ gentle music playing]
- [static crackling]

When I was 11 months old,
I wanted be an actress.

[audience applauding]

Can I get you a glass of milk, honey?

Milk? I'm a Barrymore!

Get me a drink, and make it a double!

[laughter, applause]

♪

Hi!

- Hi.
- Hi.

[both laugh]

- Thank you so much for doing this.
- We finally get to do this.

- Yes! We finally get to.
- I think we've been talking about it for,

- what, a year almost?
- Yeah.

I feel lucky that I'm a part of it.

Oh, my God, of course!
How could we not have you a part of this?

♪

You were sort of almost born into it,
given that you started at 11 months old.

[Drew Barrymore] Totally.

It was a Gaines-Burgers
puppy chow commercial.

And I've never stopped working since then

except for when I was

institutionalized by my mother.

[quiet street noise]

My mom was a waitress at the Troubadour
and The Comedy Store,

- which were coolest of the cool.
- [Demi] Wow.

[Drew] And then she met my dad

who was so cool,
he was lethally, deadly cool.

Toxically cool.

And I think she knew
she needed to get away from him.

- [Demi] Mm-hmm.
- Um, he was dangerous.

He was on a lot of drugs.

And then, she's just this single mom,

raising a baby in 1975 with no money.

There was a, a quietness in our apartment.

A, a loneliness.

And then when I got to ET,

it was like a big bustling
environment full of people

and life and creativity
and theatrics and play.

What kid doesn't wanna play?

Look what I made for you, Elliott!

I wonder why did my mom
think it was a good idea

for me to go into this?

Was it 'cause she wanted
to be an actress herself?

Was it the fact that
my dad and his family,

the Barrymores, were actors?

I've suddenly become quite important.
[chuckles]

[Drew] I was always studying my family
and the old black-and-white movies.

- [Demi] Mm-hmm.
- [Drew] So Shirley Temple was

- the child star of that era.
- [Demi] Yeah.

Yeah, I also looked up to Shirley Temple

as a young child performer
and was just like,

"I wanna be that someday. I wanna be
the youngest and the best at what I do."

[singing]
♪ Hey, what did the blue jay say? ♪

[Leah Plunkett]
Children have been part of the workforce

for an incredibly long time.

[narrator] Half a million children
are working as young as 5,

work 14 hours a day for
as little as three cents an hour.

[Leah] But in 1938,
the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act

was the first set of comprehensive
federal legislation

that had wage, hour,
and workplace condition laws

for the whole country.

♪

Child labor is appalling.

[applause]

[Leah]
And children received special protections,

except for child actors.

The Shirley Temple Act
carved out child entertainers

from the protections that children got
in most other occupations.

Congress didn't really seem to think

that child entertainers
would be as big of a part

of the nation's workforce
as they went on to be.

[inaudible]

- Look at these.
- [Demi] Oh, my God!

This is me in the pageants.

- Did you sing?
- Yeah, singing was my, my talent.

- Aw!
- Oh, my God,

- I love that picture.
- [Madison De La Garza] You were so cute.

I remember one time, you made a whole CD

of, like, eight songs you sang to tracks.

Yeah.

[Dianna De La Garza]
And you sold the CDs for $10 each.

I went around in the neighborhood
and sold my CD so that I could raise money

- to be in the pageants.
- Pushing mix tapes.

- [laughter]
- Yeah, mix tapes.

Hottest Mix Tape of the Year.

- [laughter]
- But, we did things,

uh, we bought dresses at Goodwill.

I wanted to give them
every opportunity I could

to let them do what I didn't
get to do when I was a kid.

And some things we couldn't
afford to do at that time,

but if we could, we did it.

[Dallas Lovato] Do you remember when
we would drive to auditions to Austin,

- and we would hold up signs in the back?
- And we'd say, "Honk if..."

- [laughter]
- "Honk if you're beautiful."

And it's on the back of a script!

[all laughing]

[Dianna] That script is the one where
Dallas threw the milkshake out the window.

[Dallas] I know!

She didn't realize the window
in the back seat was open.

So when she threw the milkshake out,

- it just went right back in all over us.
- Came right back in, yeah.

[Dianna] The wind threw it right back...

[Demi] We were on our way to an audition.

And we had to wash our hair
at a gas station,

- like in the sink at a gas station.
- Did you show up with wet hair?

- I don't remember. I may have dried...
- [Dianne] No!

I stuck both of them
underneath the hand dryer.

- And I went like this.
- [laughter]

Here's the thing, it's the ultimate sin

to show up at an audition late.

Or with milkshake in your hair.

[all laughing]

Let me tell you, I was panicking.

[♪ soft music playing]

[Dr. Yalda Uhls]
It's really hard to be an actor's parent.

You have to give up your career.

You have to take them to
auditions all of the time.

You have to be on set.

How are you gonna work?

[Brooks Barnes] A lot of times,
we think that it's the parents

dragging the kids to Hollywood,

and they have ideas about how this child

can support the family, and everyone can
go live on a yacht or something.

In many cases, it's the kid who sees this

as a way out.

[Chris Smith] They are born artists,

this sense of seeing the world
in a different way.

The characteristics that
some of the kid actors share

is that they're quirky.

I'm not perky.

[scoffs] That's for damn sure.

[Christina Ricci] But I wanna be.

So, how do you find your lanes in life

to work with your quirkiness?

I wanna smile. And sing and dance.

Oh, darling, do you really mean it?

[Chris Smith] If acting is your thing,

be the best entertainment
professional you can be.

Some see this as a way
of catapulting the family

to stability and becoming happy.

I was really unhappy
in my home life and at school,

and I was really bored, and I was getting
into, like, really crazy trouble at 7.

- Wow, okay.
- [Christina] Mm-hmm.

And so, as soon as
I started going on auditions

every day after school with
my mother, all of it stopped.

- All the trouble, everything.
- Mm-hmm.

[Christina] But what I really loved

was getting to go with my mom
on the bus to New York [laughs]

to the Port Authority.

And my mother was kept
in a place in my home

- where she was not present.
- [Demi] Mm-hmm.

[Christina] And as soon as she and I
got out of the house,

she had a personality.

- [turnstiles rattling]
- [indistinct chatter]

We became very close,

and she would teach me about street smarts

and getting around Manhattan

and all the stuff to avoid getting killed
at the Port Authority.

And, um... 'Cause it was 1987,

so it was a really unsafe time to be...

- [Demi] Yeah.
- Thank you.

...at the Port Authority.

So, having that one-on-one
attention from my mother

was something that was really incredible.

I think I also really loved
having something finally

- that I knew I was good at.
- [Demi] Mm-hmm.

[Christina] And getting all that positive
reinforcement all the time

- for being good at something.
- [Demi] Yeah.

- [♪ bright music playing]
- [gagging]

Bravo!

Bravo!

[reporter] What a wonderful job

- you did in this movie!
- Thank you.

[Christina] I had a very chaotic home.

My father was a failed cult leader.

And so, he had all that
same sort of, like,

really crazy narcissism,

uh, that goes along with someone
wanting to run a cult.

- [Demi] Mm-hmm.
- Um,

and he was very physically violent.

- There was never any peace in my house.
- [Demi] Right.

- And you found peace on set.
- [Christina] Yeah!

I knew nothing totally insane
was about to happen. [laughs]

- [Demi] Right.
- [Christina] You know?

Nobody was gonna, like,
get really mad and pretend

they were gonna drive the car into a wall.

For me, there was this
refuge of emotional safety.

He's a nice director, that's for sure.
And, um...

[♪ soft music playing]

...he, he needs a lot of sleep. That's...

Because he has to work late at night.

[Drew] That film changed my life.

There was something
very different about E.T.

because of the way
Steven Spielberg treated me.

I did not have a father,

and he was the person
who made me feel like,

all of a sudden
I wanted to be my best for.

Gimme your other hand. There we go!

Ah! That's great for
the small of your back.

As I was saying. [laughs]

[Drew] What I loved was that
Steven went out of his way

to make E.T. real for me.

- He's really real.
- [set chatter]

Then why are all those wires?

Those aren't wires. Those are his feet.
Didn't you know that?

He was also the first person
I felt embarrassed in front of

if I behaved badly or was caught drinking.

There was no authority in my life,

so I loved any boundary he set to me.

It didn't hit me until I was an adult,

"Oh, that's how parents are
supposed to make you feel."

What is this?

Cheese ball pick-me-ups,
accompanied by miniature franks,

and, for dessert, marshmallow kebobs.

My mother at the time did not know
anything about making movies.

She just really didn't know.
And Cher took me under her wing,

and she recognized that
sometimes you could be on a set,

and you don't know exactly
what is going on behind the scenes,

power struggles or different issues,

and if you don't know any better
and have no experience,

you could think it was your fault.

- [Demi] Right.
- And she never wanted me to feel insecure.

She was great.
I spent all my time with her.

I used to hide from tutor school
in her trailer

- and eating See's.
- [Demi laughs]

She was obsessed with
the chocolate See's lollipops.

- [Demi] Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.

It was the first time I had
ever seen, um, sparkling water also.

- [laughs]
- I was like,

"These rich people with
their bubbly water." [laughs]

She kind of was like...
Was she a mentor to you?

Yeah, I was really lucky
in that when I first started,

I had a lot... I worked with a lot of women

that were very strong.

They weren't... They were,
they were great talents,

but they were also very strong
and had boundaries

and had rules about how they were treated,

and that's one thing
I definitely got from her.

That's so nice that you had someone,

- a strong woman to look up to on set.
- [Christina] Yeah.

And that, that looked after you.

Um, I think it's...

And it was my first experience,
and she was really in charge.

Yeah. Um, I didn't have that experience.

- I'm sorry.
- It was a man's world for me.

Nobody around me really knew

this is what can happen to your kid.

I think anybody lucky enough,

or is a lucky person
to get a mentor, for sure.

- [Demi] Yeah.
- 'Cause it's like,

you know, it starts
with your parents, yes,

but kids don't listen to their parents,
you know what I mean?

Like, kids will listen
to their parents' friend

saying the exact same thing
that their parents said

- and actually listen to that person.
- [Demi chuckles]

- [Demi] Right.
- It's just one of those dynamics in life.

I had, you know, my theater mentor,

you know, our drama teacher,
Freddie Hendricks, was a big one.

You know, a lot of people in the church,

I would say, like, the church
as a whole growing up.

And then, you know, as I got older
or, you know, further into the business,

like, you know,

Brian Robbins is a big mentor of mine,

the producer on the show All That.

- Woo! What's happening, y'all?
- [audience laughter]

Hi, Kenan!

[Demi] I secretly was bummed

that I was a Disney kid
because I was like I never got to, like...

- Yeah, I knew it!
- I never got to get slimed!

Yeah, no, I was a huge fan of Nickelodeon,
like, for that reason.

Double Dare was the craziest thing
I'd ever seen,

- and I just, I wanted that.
- Yes!

Disney was like the most wholesome reality
there could ever be created.

- Right.
- So, Nickelodeon was just like,

"Yeah, we're punks or whatever.

We listen to hip-hop, we listen to R&B."
You know what I mean?

[audience laughs]

Ha! Hello there.

Welcome to Good Burger,
home of the Good Burger.

- Can I take your order?
- Oh, no, no. No food for me now.

Before Nickelodeon,
before the 1980s really,

children's entertainment was
definitely geared toward children,

but there was only the three channels,

and there's not really
a lot of children per se.

[♪ gentle music playing]

Even the cartoons were ostensibly adults.

Look at me. I'm calm.

Why shouldn't you be?
Your wife isn't having a baby.

[Mathew Klickstein]
The broadcast television model

was as broad as possible,

and then, all of a sudden,
there was this new way

of piping television into homes: cable.

[♪ quirky music playing]

[inaudible]

We've got that splintering
of the audience.

It starts to become compartmentalized
to very specific demographics.

Well, why not start
a channel aimed at kids?

Nickelodeon is narrowly cast at children.

- Alright!
- [Mathew] By the early '80s,

everybody's got a TV.
Some people have three TVs, four TVs.

There's a TV in the kids' room.

It's not just downstairs anymore.

So Nickelodeon does some of the first-ever

focus groups for children.

It's really the first time
where they're sitting down

with the kids and saying,
"What do you want us to show?"

The biggest thing that they realize
is that kids wanna see themselves.

- [Mayim Bialik] Me?
- Great idea, Spongie.

[Jaimee Foxworth]
I'm really gettin' sick of this.

[David Kamp] From the '80s onward,
there was a big ideological shift,

and there were more
and more kids on television.

- [kids] Three, two, one!
- [clang]

- [kids cheering]
- [zapping, beeping]

[announcer]
The Disney Channel is on the air!

[Mathew] Disney kicks off its own channel.

Now, there's competition.

Nickelodeon, they actually were trying
to be very anti-Disney,

kind of "Damn the Man," irreverent,

dirty, and disgusting, and slime,

and, as they would tout,
"What children want."

[both]
Nickelodeon gives you what you want!

- [splattering]
- [audience laughter]

Yo, what's up, everybody?
Kenan Thompson here

on the set of Good Burger, the movie.

- I had the Good Burger orange VHS.
- [Kenan Thompson] The orange tape.

[Demi] And I probably still do in storage.

Yeah, that orange tape is synonymous,

I think, with that era.
Like, everybody says it.

- Like, "Yo, when I was growing up..."
- [Demi] Yes. The orange tape.

That was the... Some people are like,
"That's the only movie we had."

- Aw.
- [Kenan] It was the orange tape.

I'm like, "That's...
I'm-I'm glad to bring you joy."

You do remember that it was my idea

to put the salsa on Good Burgers
in the first place.

That first commercial, when they paid me,
it was, like, $800.

- [Demi] Yeah.
- And I was, you know, 12,

- something like that. 11.
- [Demi] Yeah.

So, that might as well have been
a million dollars,

you know what I'm saying? Like,

- you know how much candy I was thinking...
- [Demi] Yeah! Of course!

- ...like, $800 is gonna buy me?
- [Demi] Of course.

Yeah, I remember booking Barney,

and seeing the episodic checks
that would come in,

- and you're... Yeah.
- [Kenan] Crazy.

And it was just like,
I don't even know... I... There's not a...

I, I can't even spend this
in one day on toys.

[singing] ♪ This one is a triangle
that has three sides ♪

♪ We draw... ♪

[interviewer] Tell us a little bit about
some of your acting that you've done.

My acting that I've done, um,
has probably been Barney.

That really got me started
and, like, with singing, too,

'cause after that,
I found a voice teacher.

[Demi] My paychecks would
go back into voice lessons

and acting lessons and guitar lessons,

and I was kind of like an investment.

There was a fire in her

that she wanted to get to the next level.

♪

[Demi] Barney was my first audition,
and I booked it, and that was great.

But then, like, I found it
really hard to book other jobs,

and I was so frustrated.

There were a lot of "nos."

And it's also like,
I feel like when you are young

and you start out in the industry

and you start making
a bunch of money right away,

no one ever tells you that it runs out.

And all of a sudden, you wake up one day,
and you're like,

"Oh, shit. This is like...
I have to keep working,

if I'm lucky enough to keep working."

- You know?
- Yeah, man.

For a long time, it was,
you know, a lot of auditioning,

- like, a lot of struggle, whatever.
- Mm-hmm. A lot of rejection.

- Ton of rejection. Like...
- Yeah.

And I really considered
not wanting to act anymore,

like, if these are the kinds
of things I had to go through.

It was almost like
I was forced to stay humble,

if you will, you know what I'm saying?

'Cause, like, when I could've
been in my most boisterous,

everybody-knows-my-name
kinda years, I didn't want that

because I didn't want people
to know I was struggling.

You know what I mean?

So, it's kind of the beautiful
kind of conundrum of, you know,

- the irony of life, if you will. Yeah.
- [Demi] Mm-hmm.

- I took it personal every time I got a no.
- [Kenan] Yeah.

'Cause I was like,
"There's something wrong with me."

I knew that that was what I wanted to do

instead of going to public school
with other kids.

Like, I never felt normal, so doing...

performing in arts made me feel

more comfortable being myself.

- [♪ lively piano playing]
- [coach] Oh, my God!

[Christina] Yeah, I learned really
early on that I could never talk about

what ha... what I did when I was away
when I was back at school.

I think the first day I came
back from shooting Mermaids,

there were two little girls
that I'd been friends with,

and I went to talk to them
and tell them about what I had done.

And they very quickly turned on me

- and thought I was bragging.
- [Demi] Yeah. Right.

And I was like... [stammering]

And I just realized that it
was not going to go over well.

- [Demi] Mm-hmm.
- And so after that,

I never spoke about it ever.

[Demi] Oh, that must've been so isolating.

I guess so. At the time, I didn't, um...

It didn't... At the time, you know,
I wasn't doing a lot of, uh...

- self-analysis at that age, obviously.
- [Demi] Mm-hmm. Yeah.

But I do think that I felt...
I was not a child that felt, um,

like I had a group where
I belonged, you know?

- [Demi] Mm-hmm.
- And I guess that...

I guess maybe, yeah,
that would've started then.

[♪ gentle music playing]

[Demi] As soon as I started
auditioning for roles,

the bullying started happening.

The popular girls started
writing in the bathroom stalls,

"Demi's a whore," all these nasty things.

And then it got to the point where,
like, by the end of the day on a Friday,

I remember going to lunch and feeling like
everyone was staring at me.

They had signed a suicide petition

saying that I should kill myself,

and it was passed around
and people signed it.

It was so extremely hurtful.

And that was a part of
my motivation to follow my dreams

because I knew it would
get me out of Texas.

I imagined what it would be like
being on Disney Channel.

I was like, "I'm gonna become so famous,
they can't escape my name."

[Dianna] The turning point for our family

was when...

Demi went to the Disney Channel
to audition for...

the Jonas Brothers show.

And she wanted it so bad.

You know, we had heard
so many "nos" on things.

At this point, we had been auditioning
for several years,

and they flew us out.

- [plane whooshing]
- Hi!

I screen tested for it and everything.

- Wow!
- [Dianna] You were here five minutes ago.

I know, but I've dreamed
about this for so long,

and I still can't believe
that I... we're here.

I was so excited. I couldn't believe

that they were considering me
for the role.

[♪ soft music playing]

The agent called us and said,

"I'm sorry, Demi didn't get it."

[Demi] I was so close.

I had gotten my hopes up so high.

Disney said,
"Even though you didn't get this one,

we still wanna see you
for two other roles."

[phone ringing]

[Dianna] And we got a phone call.
Her agent put it on speaker,

and they said, "Congratulations, Demi.

You are Camp Rock's Mitchie."

That was the name of the character.

♪ Off to the races, I'm going places ♪

♪ Might be a long shot,
not gonna waste it ♪

♪ This is the big break ♪

♪ And it's calling my name, yeah ♪

♪ So far, so great ♪

[Demi] I also booked
Sonny with a Chance, so I got both.

♪ Yow! ♪

When you get a "yes"
that's really that big,

that was like, "This is gonna change
my family's whole life."

Mom!

Ah! This is so exciting!

- [giggles]
- You know it's not every day

that I hand my beautiful daughter
over to show business.

- [audience laughs]
- Bye!

[Dianna]
The attorney that was on the phone said,

"When are you gonna be moving out here?"

And I said,
"Oh, we're not gonna be moving out."

And they... [chuckles] they laughed at me.
They were like,

"No, that's not how this works." [laughs]

We were so green in this industry.

I just had no idea how any of this worked.

And you know what?
That was the easy part of our lives.

I'm not kidding. It got harder from there.
Trust me.

[♪ soft electronic music playing]

[♪ music becomes upbeat]

[indistinct chatter]

Whoa.

[Brooks] Disney comes along and realizes

the idea of being famous is a real hook

to teenage girls in particular.

[announcer]
The Cheetah Girls In Concert Collection.

You can make them sing!

[Brooks] The first is Cheetah Girls, 2003,

about a formation of a girl group.

And then you have High School Musical

and Hannah Montana.

I wrote this song
about an 11-year-old girl

who wanted to be a rock star.

These shows about performing

and what it might be like to be famous.

This could lead to something bigger,

like T-shirts, backpacks, lunchboxes.

It's always been a dream of mine
to be on a lunchbox!

[Brooks]
The big thing that the networks realize

is that these shows in particular

are very merchandise-friendly.

[♪ gentle music playing]

- [announcer 1] JoJo Siwa!
- [crowd cheering]

[announcer 2] Entertainer-performer
JoJo Siwa can do it all.

She's fun, she's positive,
and she's so sparkly!

We're in JoJo heaven,

and now, your little one can be, too,

with the JoJo range at Walmart.
Available now!

You have so much merchandise!

[JoJo Siwa] It's crazy!

- Oh, my God.
- [JoJo] Yeah.

- You need a bath bomb?
- Oh, scented bath bombs?

- [JoJo] [laughs] Fully.
- What else do we have? We have...

I mean, art kits.

- We got toys, electronics...
- Art kits.

- ...merchandise, bows.
- Cups.

- "Design your own glitter tumblers."
- [JoJo] Yep. [laughs]

[Demi] You have everything!

[JoJo]
I have everything you could ever need

for a 7-year-old girl's birthday party.

[both laugh]

[singing]
♪ I'ma come back like a boomerang ♪

Just updated the JoJo Siwa merch room!

It was always really cool to me.
It was weird

being produced as an animation almost,

you know what I mean? But it was real,

- it was me, like the... not a character.
- Right.

- But at the same time, same as SpongeBob.
- Right.

You know what I mean?
Same as Mickey Mouse.

- 'Cause your name is on this, so it's you.
- Mm-hmm.

- It's me. Yeah.
- It's your likeness. It's not a character

that you're playing,
which is totally different

- than what Hannah Montana and other...
- Exactly. You.

- And, and me, yeah. [laughs]
- You, yeah!

[♪ upbeat pop music playing]

[crowd screaming]

[JoJo] Growing up, seeing
Hannah Montana on stage with the fans,

and she was singing Nobody's Perfect,

that was like, I wanted to be it.

[crowd cheering]

[Brooks] If you get a Disney show
or a Nickelodeon show,

suddenly, your life changes overnight.

You not only become famous,

your image becomes merchandised.

You're in Target aisle.

They send you to the theme parks

to stand on the top of a parade.

If you can sing from Disney's, uh,
music label,

as that triple-threat benefit can be,

"Oh, wait, you can act and dance.

Uh, let's put you in front of cameras."

You're such the triple-threat.
You dance, you act.

Is singing your number one?

- [audience clapping]
- Triple-threat star Ariana Grande

is following the super
successful footsteps...

Kinda wanna be a triple threat.

[♪ soft music playing]

[Demi] Everyone at that time
wanted to be on Disney Channel.

It was the coolest thing to do
is to be a Disney channel star.

♪

- Justin.
- Keri.

- JC.
- Britney.

Ryan.

[Demi] It was the only way
that teens were able

to make it in the industry at a young age

because getting a movie role

that would break
a child actor was so rare,

- and here came along this...
- [crowd cheering]

...massive platform

that could easily transform your life.

- [♪ muffled upbeat music playing]
- [♪ indistinct singing]

I had so much fun filming Camp Rock.

The whole thing was so exciting.

We were all kind of just thrown
into this Disney machine.

- [Jasmine Richards] What up?
- [Alyson Stoner] This is our school room!

[cheering]

This is where we hang out.

[Demi] We called it Disney High.

[♪ harmonizing]

[Demi]
You know, we were dating each other,

and there was people
that didn't like each other,

and we were all the same age.

And none of us were in high school,
so that was our experience of it.

[both] Oh, my God! [laughter]

♪

[Alyson] I don't think there's been
one night where we're not hanging out.

It shows how close
we've really gotten with each other.

Everyone in this movie is friends
with each other, and that's hard to find.

- [balloon pops]
- Ha-ha!

Oh, my gosh!

- [Alyson] Do you remember this?
- Oh, yeah! [laughs]

[both singing] ♪ Hand it up,
let's start, start, start ♪

- Oh, it was this.
- Why do I know this dance still?

- [laughing]
- This is embarrassing.

It lives forever in my cellular memory.

[laughing]

- [Demi] Oh, my God!
- [Alyson] Stop!

Well, Anne Marie.

- Yeah!
- Yeah.

- Do you ever talk to her?
- No!

- Yeah, I stalked her.
- Also... Okay. [laughs]

I think she has a baby
and, like, is married.

- [gasps] What?
- Yeah.

♪ I know you're never gonna wanna ♪

Who out of us have babies?

- [Demi laughs]
- Giovanni!

I feel like dancing
to the beat of a different drum.

Oh, wow.

Hi, I'm Caitlyn, camper today,

top-selling music producer tomorrow.
Check me out.

[♪ upbeat techno music playing]

Cool! [laughs]

Do you the keyboard scene?

- I don't know what you're talking about.
- You... [laughs]

[♪ quiet techno music playing]

It's like... like this. It's so good!

[♪ techno continues]

I play a piano
that wasn't plugged in on the day

and didn't know what song
they were gonna add.

- [Demi] Oh, no... Yes.
- Do you... And then when I heard it

when the movie came out,
I was like, "That's what you chose?"

[Demi laughing]

"I'm supposed to be a talented producer!

That's what you're playing?"

[♪ quiet techno continues]

[Demi]
And I'm like, "Wow, she's really good!"

- [laughs]
- [Alyson] That's the moment.

[both laugh]

[Demi] I remember one time,
you followed me into the bathroom.

- In Camp Rock one.
- Yeah. Yeah.

[Demi] And I had been purging,

and you picked up on it
because your Spidey senses

were already in tune with those behaviors.

- [Alyson] Mm-hmm.
- And you followed me in,

and you talked to me.

And I was really grateful that someone...

didn't just, like, shun me in that moment,

um, or shame me at all.

I felt like you were
very understanding and...

But, that was definitely
a moment that I remember being, like...

One, I was like, "Oh, my God,
somebody knows."

- Mm-hmm.
- [Demi] Like, "Fuck."

But two, I was, like, really grateful
that you were there for me.

Yeah, and I felt that support mutually

- and feeling like we ha... we know...
- [Demi] Yeah.

We know that what we're dealing with
at the surface level

is just one part of the story
of what we're going through each day.

Do you remember doing, like,
the photo shoots that we did

- for the teen magazines?
- [Demi] Yes, like, like Popstar!

- And Tiger Beat.
- [Alyson] Yeah. I remember they removed

every line and airbrushed under my eyes,

almost not recognizing myself,
and then immediately going,

"I didn't know that those things
were wrong with me before."

And that, like, stuck with me, you know,

for all the subsequent
photo shoots of, like,

"Oh, I know that in post,
they're gonna fix these five things."

[♪ gentle music playing]

You see yourself, and you're like,

- "Oh, my gosh, this is amazing."
- [Demi] Yeah.

[Alyson] "I look perfect," you know?
And then I look in the mirror,

- and I'm like, "Wait, what?" Like...
- [Demi] Yeah.

It's definitely caused
a lot of self-esteem

and self-confidence issues.

- Hey, guys! It's me, Demi.
- Hello. And Alyson.

Yes, and guess where we are?

- London!
- [Demi] Yeah, you see the flag?

[Alyson]
The Camp Rock press junket in Europe

- was a really, really dark time for me...
- Yeah.

- ...with my eating disorder.
- Mm-hmm.

And I remember specifically

feeling terrified of my appearance

and being in very, very,
very obsessive behaviors

before the press started

and knowing we, we were both

- going through a lot.
- [Demi] Mm-hmm.

And you know, on the outside,
then people were like, "That was amazing!

Look how great you look!"
And we're like, "You have no idea

what's going on right now."

[Demi] Yeah. It was a way to take
control of the situation.

[Alyson]
Yes, and sometimes also understanding

that is the only sense of safety
and control that you have.

- [Demi] Mm-hmm.
- It was just like, "I was trained to be

"at your beck and call,
and whatever you want from me,

I will provide."

[♪ gentle music playing]

[Christina] Definitely being easy
to work with was the ultimate.

You knew you were gonna get the next job

based on how easy you
and your mother were to work with.

[Demi] Yeah.

[Christina]
And then I was pretty easy, too,

because I just so desperately
wanted to be there.

The idea of agency was not something

- that was even... You know what I mean?
- Yeah.

Like, it didn't even occur to me,
you know?

- The right to...
- [Demi] Yeah.

The right to argue or say
or disagree and all that stuff

was something that was almost...
Yeah, it was earned.

- [inaudible chatter]
- [♪ muffled music playing]

[Drew] I was pretty convinced that
the more open and available I was,

that makes you better at your job.

- Yeah.
- [Drew] So the memo I got was

your job requirement is to unzip,

metaphorically speaking,
and open yourself up to everything.

- Right.
- I, I didn't know boundaries.

[interviewer] Could you step back
and let us see the dress?

We're doing a story on fashion.

When you turn yourself into a commodity,

you're talking about validation.

You're talking about feeling less than.

You're talking about losing people,
gaining people.

- That's a serious mental game...
- [Demi] Right.

[Drew] ...that you need to have intact
in order to handle it all.

[Demi] I think I became aware of it,

like, it... I started noticing the word
"brand" in conversations,

and it just came into my consciousness
when I was about 15,

whenever I started
working on Disney Channel.

You know, like, "What image am I going
to put out there of myself?"

It's confusing when you start
profiting off of...

your brand,
which you confuse with yourself.

And the m... Like you said,

that's an exhausting part of the industry.

[muffled chatter]

[door opens]

- [Oak Felder] Hey, hey!
- [Demi] Hello. How's it going?

[Oak] I'm chillin'. How are you?

- I'm good. Good to see you.
- [laughs] It's good to see you, too.

[Demi] There's all this pressure
to create a hit song,

and that takes away from the joy of it,

'cause I'm in the studio second-guessing
everything I do and write.

[♪ "Don't Forget" instrumental playing]

♪ We had it all ♪

Dammit, that wasn't good enough.

Let me give you another.

[♪ "Don't Forget" resumes playing]

♪ We had it all ♪

Fuck.

Dammit, why are you beating yourself up?

I didn't like that. Let me take a sip.

♪ Ever hold ♪

♪ Ever holding ♪

- ♪ Ever holding my hand ♪
- Is that it?

- Nope, that wasn't it.
- [Oak] Eh, yeah, could've been it, but...

[Demi] Just this cycle that feels
like it's never-ending.

♪ Than we were before, I won't forget ♪

[both sing] ♪ I won't forget ♪

♪ About us ♪

- [♪ music stops]
- Nice. I think we got it.

One more just for shits.

- [♪ Music playing]
- ♪ Did you regret ♪

♪ Ever holding my hand ♪

- ♪ Never forget ♪
- [Oak cheering]

♪ Please, don't forget ♪

- [Oak] What was that?!
- That's pain.

♪ Ever holding my hand, never again ♪

Yeah.

Where it changed for me was I sat down

with my former management when I was 15,

and they said, "Do you have any songs?"
And I played them

five of the songs I'm most proud of,

and they didn't react to them
the way that I was hoping.

They were like, "Those are okay.

"Um, let's get you in the studio with

such-and-such artists and writers."

And that, to me, chipped away

at that raw connection to music.

Obviously, my ego was hurt.

It chipped away at my confidence,

and I never turned to music
the same way again.

[quiet static]

[announcer] They've got the looks,

personality, and talent
to land feature roles

on some of TV's hottest shows.

In the '80s, all of sudden you start
having more and more of these child actors

who are becoming stars.

Their formative years are completely
and totally impacted

by their being in show business.

It's fun, and it's big bucks.

[TV host] Yes, big bucks.

4-year-old Cosby Show cutie
Raven-Symoné and her father

say that's exactly why
she's in this business.

This is fun, but it's also a job,

and she does this to get what?

- [Raven-Symoné] Mm, paid.
- Exactly. Um, there's...

[chuckles] there's, uh, um, college

and things that she wants,
so forth like that.

[Demi] When did you realize it was work?

I knew it was work immediately.

My parents made sure
that I understood that this was a job.

I get paid for it, and you do...

You show up professionally.

At what age do you start
to fathom what money is?

When you're told how much you're getting
paid for the job that you do.

So, I knew at 3 how much I was making,
and I understood that this was a job.

If you lose it, you don't make...
you don't make the money.

Right. When did you realize
you were the breadwinner for your family?

We call it a family business.

- Right.
- [Raven] Everybody has a job

- within the family business.
- [Demi] Okay.

So, nobody likes to say one person
is the breadwinner or not.

- [Demi] Right.
- Read through those lines.

- [Oprah Winfrey] Oh, Raven!
- [audience clapping, cheering]

Hi! How are you?

- [Raven] Good.
- [Oprah laughs]

[laughing] Hi!

[Raven] Booking The Cosby Show,
I mean, I can only imagine

the excitement within the family dynamic.

Cousins, grandmas, and aunties.

Tell me how you got this job.

[Raven] Cosby Show was the number-one
television show in America

especially with an African-American cast
and so influential

within the fabric of society.
Um, you know,

a young girl from Atlanta, Georgia.

Good luck to you, Raven.
It's so nice to have you.

- So nice to have you, too.
- [laughs] Thank you.

I mean, that's the dream
of so many Black people at that time.

From the age of 16 months,
I knew that my job

was to entertain other people.

- I mean, that's a mind thing in itself.
- [Demi] Mm-hmm.

- [Raven] You know?
- [Demi] Mm-hmm.

[Raven] One of the youngest Black females

to have a show named after them
is a lot of pressure.

Yep, that's me!

Sometimes, though, the parents' dreams

- might bleed into the child's...
- [Demi] Mm-hmm.

[Raven] ...and you get so enmeshed,
you know?

[Demi] Mm-hmm.

Parents forget that children,

young kids,
are performing for their parent.

[Demi] Mm-hmm.

They're performing for their parents'
love and affection...

- [Demi] Mm-hmm.
- ...and their "Good job!"

And yes, it's a lot of money.

It's a lot of money,
and money does crazy shit.

♪

[news reel narrator] It's 1920,
and Jackie arrives in Los Angeles,

acting very much the role
of popular movie star,

but he's still a little boy to grownups.

[Leah]
Jackie Coogan was one of the most famous

child actors in American history.

He made very good money
performing alongside Charlie Chaplin,

but he actually wasn't able

to access the bulk of his own money
upon becoming an adult.

His parents had frittered away
what should have been millions.

[♪ cinematic music playing]

So, California passed the first Coogan Law

that required that there be
some percentage of money

for a child actor set aside in a trust.

So, in those states where they do exist,

Coogan Laws are really important
for child entertainers.

In Florida, they didn't have the same kind
of labor laws or whatever.

My mom met this dude, I think, like,

somewhere through the community,
like, either church

or just neighborhood shit,
like, a book club or something, like,

who claimed to be a good,
you know, kinda tax accountant.

Like, will get you out of, like,
your tax problems

for, like, the cheap or whatever.

Um, but, he was basically a con artist

and, like, ran away with,
like, my entire, like,

biggest earnings up to that point,
you know what I mean?

So, by the time it was discovered,

it was towards the end
of that Nickelodeon tenure

and the end of, you know,
the job-to-job, you know, existence

that I had at that point.
And it was, it was devastating

because I, like, discovered it

in front of others,
you know what I'm saying?

Like, I was going to buy a house
in, you know, Atlanta,

like, my first home kinda shit,

and then he didn't show up with
the fuckin' check, you know what I mean?

I'm in these, like,
real estate people's office,

like, waiting to sign this paperwork,

and he doesn't bring
the check kinda thing.

- Uh-huh.
- [Kenan] It's crazy, going from

rags to riches and back to rags.
It's a motherfucker.

- [♪ gentle music playing]
- [audience applause]

[Alyson] It wasn't until the early '20s,
I was touring my original music.

One of the dancers I brought with me said

the check bounced,

uh, when I paid them out weekly.
And I was like,

"This is impossible because
I've been working since I was 7,

and I don't spend any money ever."

And I uncovered

that people in my...

surrounding network had been taking money

- without me knowing...
- [Demi] Mm.

...for years.

[♪ gentle music playing]

[Chris Columbus]
I came from a working-class family,

and I've seen it
a couple of times with kids

when we see someone who comes
from a working-class family,

and suddenly, they're thrown into,

the kid becomes
the breadwinner for the family.

Particularly if you're doing a franchise.

We went from shooting Home Alone one,

nobody cared, but in the course of a year,

Macaulay Culkin became a huge star,

and that was unexpected.

It's not like Harry Potter where you know

that it may be extraordinarily successful.

[kids screaming]

[reporter]
The new Harry Potter film are looking

for children to play the three main roles.

[Chris Columbus] The first Potter film,
in terms of casting,

it was very intense.

I had to put blinders on because
that's all I was hearing, everywhere.

You know, you go out on the street,
you go into a pub, you go anywhere,

and people are saying,
"Who are you gonna cast?

Who's gonna be Harry Potter?
Who's gonna be Harry Potter?"

And that, you take that information,

and you bring it back to the actor
and the actor's parents.

- [chaperone] Gentlemen, this is Rupert.
- [host] Hi, Rupert!

- [chaperone] This is Daniel.
- Hi, Daniel.

[chaperone] And this is Emma.

This is gonna get pretty intense.

[reporter]
Daniel, are you going to be a, a saver?

[♪ soft music playing]

- Probably. Um...
- [group laughs]

I... No, I don't have any idea.

[quiet laughter]

[interviewer 1] You nervous?

Yeah, very! I'm, like, so totally nervous.

[interviewer 1]
It's your first day. How does it feel?

It feels absolutely fantastic.

Now, see?

I just felt a tremendous
responsibility to the actors,

that they knew what
they were getting into.

[Emma Watson] Yeah, insanely nervous.
The amount of people here is amazing.

[interviewer 2] You're really getting the
Hollywood superstar treatment out there.

Yeah, it was, um, weird,
but really, really cool.

[Chris Columbus] Kids signed for...
on for, like, five movies.

That's the rest of your life
as a child star.

[interviewer 3]
Well, chaps, six down, two to go.

[Chris Columbus]
That's gonna be your legacy,

and you have to learn
how to live with that.

When I was young, I had some pretty...

rough experiences
with other films that I had done.

We would use a dolly shot.

Yeah, what should I do here?

- Do a dolly shot. Yeah.
- You think so?

- I don't know. Do you... Really? Okay.
- Yeah. Yeah.

- And what about after this?
- Mm...

Once we wrapped,
I, I didn't know what was going on.

[♪ quiet music playing]

Suddenly, I realized that parents
had to be a big part of it.

I can't have him go home
to a really sort of shaky environment

for the sake of a film. It's not worth it.

It was as important to cast the parents
as it was to cast the kids.

You're supposed to be interviewing me,
but I'm just curious. Is it...

Did you have people supporting you

- who wanted to...
- [Demi] I think my...

I love my parents to death,

but they didn't know how
to manage that situation.

- Right.
- You know, it's a very tricky situation

when I'm the breadwinner.

- Yeah.
- And, um, and my parents,

- there was no manual on what to do.
- Mm-hmm.

[Dianna] There was one trip that we took,

she was doing a show
with the Jonas Brothers one night,

and we'd had interviews
and photo shoots and everything all day.

And she was about to go out

on stage, and she said,

"I just need five minutes, Mama. I need
five minutes. I just need to sleep."

[muffled cheering]

And I remember trying to wake her up.

She couldn't open her eyes,
and I started crying,

and then she started crying.

And here she's about to have
to go out on stage. But, it was just,

for me as a mom,

that's when I vowed to say,

"Hey, she's proven herself now.

"Can we pull back a little bit?

"And that's all I'm asking.
We're not asking not to do our job.

"We're just saying, you know,
can we get her

a little more sleep when she gets there?"
That kind of thing.

[Demi] I was a teenager,
and I was just exhausted.

- I was being worked into the ground.
- [Chris Columbus] Right.

We were all just kind of flapping around,

- figuring out how to swim, you know?
- Yeah.

- [CD drive whirs]
- [♪ upbeat music playing]

[Demi]
It started out me booking Camp Rock,

filming Camp Rock,

and then going back to LA,

filming a season of my TV show.
Actually, no.

- [audio scrubbing]
- I filmed Camp Rock.

Then, I worked on my album.

I wrote it, recorded it
within about a month.

And then, I went on tour. After tour,

I filmed a season of my TV show
Sonny with a Chance.

Then, I filmed
Princess Protection Program.

After Princess Protection Program,

I started making another album.

Then, I toured.
Then, I filmed Camp Rock 2.

I worked on another album,
another season of my TV show.

It was back to back to back to back.

♪

Nobody really knew how
to stop the machine.

The, the train just kept moving.

Like, it was, there were never any pauses.

I've been touring almost
every day since June 1st,

which I don't know the day today.

But, it is, like, the 5th of September.

Could be the 5th September today.
I don't know.

♪ Machine... ♪

It burnt me out.

♪ Machine! ♪

♪ Machine! ♪

♪ I won't change anything of my life ♪

- [crowd screaming]
- [banging on car]

[indistinct chatter]

There was one time
where I was in my tour bus,

and I looked out the window,
and there were fans chasing the bus,

and they were screaming,
and they were so excited

that my bus was showing up to the venue.

And I was just crying.

Like, I could not stop crying.

Like, "Why am I living my dream
and doing what I love

"and have these opportunities
in front of me,

but I'm so fucking unhappy?"

I would always feel so gross about myself.

- [fans screaming]
- I knew that being on Disney Channel,

I was in a coveted position

that millions of people would
trade me in a heartbeat,

and just, I felt like
I was taking it for granted.

But really, I was just...

just a teenager that was struggling.

[screaming continues]

Hi, how's it going?

Do you guys have any questions for me?
I would love to answer them.

"What's it like to be living my dream?"

Um, I am living my dream.

I don't think I could be
asking to do anything else.

I'm, like, having the
best time in my life,

and I...

I love it so much. It's incredible.

Camp Rock, I remember a lot more than I do

- Camp Rock 2.
- [Alyson] Camp Rock 2.

And there were, like,
entire projects that...

- it was like, "Oh! That film." Like...
- [Demi] Yeah. Yeah.

Disassociation.

It's, like, a common thread between...

- All of us. Yep.
- All of us.

Please welcome 10-year-old
hip-hop dancer Alyson Stoner.

- [audience cheering]
- [♪ hip-hop music playing]

- Congratulations on the, uh, on the video.
- [Alyson] Thank you.

Best Video of the Year.

Yes, that was very exciting.

[Ellen Degeneres]
I'll bet is was exciting!

Yes, it was, it was.

♪ I put my thang down,
flip it and reverse it ♪

[♪ singing in reverse]

I know I started dancing
around 3 years old,

and I just went straight to, like,

treating it like work,

and so I think I was dissociated

kind of throughout the whole journey.

[audience cheering]

On the outside,
you look like everything's okay.

- [Demi] Yeah.
- And then years later,

you can't remember a thing.

[audio warbles]

[♪ gentle music playing]

- You've been working!
- [giggles] Yes!

[Raven] The first time I was
in front of a professional camera,

I was 16 months old.

- [Demi] Sixteen...
- Do I remember it? Fuck no.

[both laughing]

Do I have the picture of it? Yes.
I'm, like, shirtless like this,

and my hair is big and fluffy,
but, um, I do not remember it.

- ♪ You got the right one, baby ♪
- [audience laughs]

- Do you remember working on the show?
- [mouthing]

[Demi] No. Okay, wow.

It's disappearing every single day.
Back in the day,

probably if you would've asked me that
when I was 13, my answer was,

"I remember what the floor looked like.
I remember the smells."

- [Demi] Mm-hmm.
- But even that is a recall from a recall.

Like, nothing is a pure memory right now.

I also wanna talk about that a little bit.

Like, 'cause I don't...

You guest starred on my show
Sonny with a Chance.

Yes, I did.

I've completed my own investigation!

And my own conclusion is that you

- are a wackadoodle-doo.
- [audience laughter]

I'm a wackadoodle-who?

Doo!

- What?!
- Whoa, hey! Okay, girls, girls, girls.

When we first got on the phone

to talk about this project,
you were like...

I was like, "I watched you
on That's so Raven,

such an inspiration." You were like,
"Bitch, I was on your show."

- [Raven laughing]
- And I was like, "Oh, my God, she was!"

- [Raven] Yeah.
- And I...

But it was part of my disassociation
that I don't even remember

- so much of my show that I was on.
- [Raven] Yeah.

But I do remember how
difficult I was to work with

because I was in so much pain,
and I was hurting.

- I mean, you weren't the nicest person.
- [Demi] Right.

You weren't like, "Welcome!" You know?
You weren't doing that. But,

being the type of person I am

and that I've been in the industry
for as long as you,

and I understand
the glaze over the eyes...

Mm.

[Raven] ...I didn't hold it against you.

- [Demi] Yeah.
- I just was like,

"Something's going on there."

- [crowd chattering]
- We love you!

[Demi] Aw, thank you. There we go.

- Uh, I took your pen. Sorry.
- [cheering]

It just kind of happened so fast.

Our stars have become true global
megastars since the first movie.

[Brooks] It must be overwhelming,

and a lot of these kids
come from normal backgrounds,

and the pressure can be
absolutely excruciating

to the point that some
don't cope all that well.

[Demi] I felt like more of
an equal when I did Camp Rock

because the first one,
we were all at The Grand.

- Okay, the memories are flooding! Um...
- [Demi laughs]

I do know that we had
a bunch of cast dinners

- at the restaurant.
- [Demi] Yes.

[♪ gentle music playing]

Then, my career exploded,

and all of a sudden,
I was staying at the Four Seasons.

There was definitely a power dynamic
and a shift in that.

When the second movie came,
it felt really validating

because I had been leveled up,
but I was trading connection for success.

[crowd cheering]

[Alyson] I remember that it felt so hard
to access you in that way.

- [Demi] Oh yeah.
- Like, we had lost that thread of trust.

- [Demi] Mm-hmm.
- We had lost that closeness.

It didn't seem maybe like you wanted

- to be reached either at that point.
- Mm-hmm.

And so, the last few years
of working together

felt really challenging.

The... treatment did feel
drastically different.

[long sigh]

[weak laugh]

- My heart is racing.
- [Demi] [laughs] Oh, no!

Um, I do remember, you know,
a sense of walking on eggshells.

- Mm-hmm.
- And so there was definitely, like,

f... a lot of fear of a blow-up.

I'm just trying to get stuff done,
but if you guys don't care...

Mitchie!

We all care. You gotta lighten up.

Really? And what will that get us?

I know that we both were
going through our own stuff,

but it still didn't give me an excuse
to treat anyone poorly,

and so I just wanna genuinely,
deeply apologize for like any...

um, stress or any, like,
walking on eggshells,

any hurt feelings.

Like, I'm genuinely so sorry for that.

- Thank you.
- [Demi] And I look back at that time,

and I have, like, profound sadness
'cause I'm like,

"How many people did I treat poorly?"

There are such big feelings that I've had
since you told me you were doing this.

I know that things that have
happened along the way, though,

certain excess and certain behaviors
and certain looking the other way

or certain... [punching palm]
...forcing things

has led to my own rebellion or downfall.

Um...

But, again, those were all my actions.

Those were my reactions.
That was my coping mechanisms.

I'm very accountable.
I don't blame other people.

Well...

it's hard to say that
you don't blame other people

when other people

may have been giving you

- substances as a kid.
- [Drew] Yeah, yeah.

Because at, at that age, at however old...

How old were you when you
were first given something?

[inhales]

I mean, I used to get high
with my mom's friend at, like...

- 10. You know?
- [Demi] Right.

And I thought she was so cool,
and she would give weed to me and her son.

- [Demi] Wow.
- Mm.

I would say it's hard
to not blame someone else

when you're 10 years old.

I mean, having
a 10-year-old daughter now, I...

I just, I...

It's unfathomable.

- [Demi] Right.
- Um...

But that's just how I grew up.

- [people cheering, club chatter]
- [♪ dance club music playing]

I immediately went right
to drugs and alcohol,

uh, in my teens.

I don't remember it feeling
like there was any other way

- to be happy.
- [Demi] Right.

Um, and I would imagine,
too, if you felt like

you had absolutely
no control over your life,

that's one of the few things
you had control over.

I would say,
"If you're gonna work me like an adult,

I'm gonna party like an adult."

I had to be so conscious

of everything that I did as a Disney kid.

You obviously couldn't
cuss or swear in public.

You couldn't be seen with red Solo cups

because it could insinuate
that there's alcohol in there.

- I actually remember that, too.
- [Demi] Yeah.

If you, if you had a Solo cup on set,

- it would be a whole thing.
- [Demi] Yeah, it was a whole thing,

- and so I never was photographed...
- So I put...

I put my booze in my Diet Coke can.

- [Demi] [laughs] I put it in a coffee cup!
- [laughs] Yes.

And I would say to my assistant,
"Can I have a warming Diet Coke, please?"

[both laugh]

[reporter] Teen star Demi Lovato's rise
to superstardom has taken a detour

straight to a treatment center.

[Demi] I knew I couldn't
show that I was drinking,

even though I was.

It just made me rebel even more.

There was a moment after the incident,
and you left tour where...

The incident, by the way,
just so that everyone is aware,

is when I...

had punched...

my backup dancer
while on tour in South America.

[indistinct chatter]

I got kicked off the tour, basically,

and I'm on my way home,
and we have a layover in Dallas,

and I'm like, "When do we land in LA?"

[♪ gentle music playing]

Wait.

It turns out that they had set up

for me to go to treatment
in a suburb in Chicago.

It wasn't like a situation where it was
like I came to the conclusion

that I needed help.
It was like, "I'm getting punished.

This is the end of my career.
What did I just do?"

- [Alyson] Yeah.
- [Demi] And I felt so hopeless.

There were just these...

intense pressures that were incessant.

[Demi] I mean,
I still think about what's on-brand.

[Alyson] Yeah.

[Demi] That's something that
I deal with to this day,

that teenage role model,

and those words should
never be put together,

teenage role model.

Together, we'll save the planet,
one friend at a time.

[♪ uplifting PSA music playing]

[Mathew]
There becomes a point where the kids

are not just characters
that they're playing.

They are role models.

First starts in the '90s.

Welcome to the Mickey Mouse Club.

[Mathew] It's not just,
"I'm an actor on this show."

It becomes, "I am this character.

I am this brand."

And it really shoots off
into the stratosphere

with the idea of the superstar pop idol.

[soda can pops, hissing]

[♪ dramatic music playing]

That includes, "Buy this stuff."

Or, "Buy what I'm wearing."
It becomes unprecedented

in a way that you just couldn't do before.

[Leah] When we think about child stars,

really what is gonna set them apart

is not that they have the best soprano
you've ever heard in a child.

[presenter]
Four sizes. 12 inches, 15 inches,

17 inches, and 19 inches.

[Leah] It's going to be
that the adults around them

are building an empire

that is designed to turn them
into, really, a vehicle

for advertising,
product placement, and viewership.

[Brooks] At its peak,
Hannah Montana was generating

about a billion dollars from
many different revenue points,

but that is the type of money

that not just the channel executives
pay attention to.

Wall Street analysts ask executives
about it on their earnings calls.

The board of the company is aware of it,

and that's a whole different
level of pressure and scrutiny.

Disney Best in Breed in the media group.
We're gonna talk about that. Bill?

[overlapping financial chatter]

[♪ "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"
by Paul Dukas playing]

[Brooks] As the conglomerates grow,
they become multinational behemoths.

♪

Viacom owns MTV, BET, VH1,

Country Music Network, Nickelodeon.

The CEO of the company in 2010 told me

that there was no more important
component than Nickelodeon.

It was the cash cow.
It was what drove the entire company.

[facilitator 1] Good day everyone,
and welcome to the Viacom conference call.

[executive] We've seen robust
audience engagement with kids.

Our strategy is working.

We're investing in content
with a disciplined approach.

We have a lot in the pipeline.

[facilitator 2]
Good day, ladies and gentlemen,

and welcome to the Walt Disney

second quarter 2009
earnings conference call.

[participant] [on phone]
Be great if you could comment

on how strong you feel like
the upcoming content cycle is

at Disney Channel.
We've had such a great run,

and particularly in summer with
High School Musical

and years ago with Cheetah Girls...

[chatter fades out]

[♪ music swells]

[Brooks] These shows generally
run for about four years,

tape about 100 episodes,

and at the beginning,
the child star and their family

is extremely grateful, right?

"All of a sudden, I'm a star."

And toward the end,
they're starting to think about

what, what my next career move might be,

and they want things that
the brand might not want.

You all are gonna freak out.

They want to age into
a new type of entertainment.

That was what Miley Cyrus
was doing, right?

♪

"I'm not a nerdy 13-year-old anymore.

"I'm becoming an adult.

I have other aspirations than
being on Disney Channel."

[indistinct chatter]

That became a five-alarm fire for Disney.

When something like that happens,
it's a very big operation.

Hundreds of people are, are trying

to keep these properties,
really, on track.

- [♪ JoJo humming]
- [overlapping set chatter]

[JoJo] Basically, I signed
an umbrella deal for everything,

so they owned all my rights to everything
except for social media.

We were very smart to be
able to keep that separate.

But, if I had, like, a brand deal,
I had to get it approved by Nickelodeon.

- Okay.
- So, that was always, yeah.

But, they own everything.

When I was 17,
it just became something that

I didn't wanna be
a part of at all anymore,

would do anything I could
to break away from it, get out of it.

Always people would ask me like,

"Are you... Are you gay?"
And I would just be like,

"I don't really, like,
think I'm anything."

- [slurping]
- [phone ringing]

It was like 2:00 in the morning,

I was on FaceTime with my girlfriend,

and I did a video singing Born This Way.

♪ No matter gay, straight, or bi,
lesbian, transgender life ♪

♪ I'm on the right track, baby,
I was born to survive ♪

And I was like, "I think I wanna
put this on my Reels Story,"

'cause it was all my close friends.
She's like, "Okay, do it."

Boop, that was it.
Fell asleep, woke up the next morning

and was like, "Oh, my God!"

[phone notifications pinging]

I didn't realize, I guess,

that, like, no child star,
as still a child star,

has ever come out before.

The president of the network called me

and was like,
"What are we gonna tell the kids?"

And I was like, "What do you mean?"

And he was like, "What are we gonna tell
kids and parents?" And I was like,

[stammers]

again, like, "What do you mean?"

And he was like,
"What are we gonna tell them about this?"

And I was like, "That I'm happy?

"That I, like am... [stammers]

"What? Like, you want me to tell 'em
that I'm making out with a girl?

- I'm not gonna tell them that!"
- [Demi] Yeah.

But, like, you want me... Like...
[stammers] I don't know.

And he was like, "Well, you need
to have a call with every retailer

and tell 'em that you're not going crazy."

- I was like, "Okay. Like, alright, sick."
- [Demi] Going crazy.

Going crazy.
Came out, came out, going crazy.

And I, I... So I did, and I had
a call with every retailer,

Target, Walmart, JCPenney,
Toys R Us, Claire's,

Justice, every retailer at the time.

And Amazon, had a call with them.

Oh, my God, I can't imagine.

And everything,
everything after I came out

was, like, changed.

The way they communicated with me changed.

The way they worked with me changed.

The way they developed my work changed.
Everything changed.

I remember they had
the Kids' Choice Awards,

and I, for the last seven years,
like, have done everything

for the Kids' Choice Awards.

- [Demi] Mm-hmm.
- [Jojo] Performed, hosted,

nominated, won, presented,
like done it all.

♪ I'ma come back like a boomerang ♪

A lot of you have been asking me

why I'm not at the Nickelodeon
Kids' Choice Awards tonight,

and the answer is very simple.

I wasn't invited.

I'm not sure why,

but I just didn't get an invite.

I basically got, like, blackballed
from the company.

[♪ soft music playing]

They said that it was, like, an accident.

And I don't know. It...

I guess I just didn't realize, like,

- how young I was.
- [Demi] Mm-hmm.

How "scary" it was supposed to be.

But I think it's the best thing
that I could've ever done.

I don't think coming out
should be a scary thing.

- [Demi] Right.
- I wish it wasn't.

I wish there wasn't that stigma around it,

- but there is.
- [Demi] Right.

My parents were like, "We knew." I was
like, "Alright, you knew. Okay, for sure."

- Right.
- But, like, if you pass through

the industry mask, you still have to meet

the mask that's
the gay person that's like,

"Oh, you not getting past
this one to find the real me."

- Right.
- [Raven] "This is mine to hold."

And that one, no one saw,

probably... yeah.

- For-for-for-for-for a long time.
- [Demi] Mm-hmm.

There was a moment in my life when I got
asked if I wanted to stop the industry.

But it was, like, second season of
That's So Raven.

- It was, like, third album.
- [Demi] Mm-hmm.

And I'm like, "Why would you
ask me that question now?

"Just to make me feel bad to say yes

when you know I don't really
wanna be here right now?" [laughs]

[♪ gentle music playing]

[Demi] I didn't know that
you could take time off

because no one told me.

[crowd cheering]

At one point,
I played 70 shows in 90 days.

I was gonna have two nights off,

and then, when push came to shove,

they were like, "We need those two days
of rehearsals for the movie."

People are going to milk
all of your light out of you

because, "You're young
and you have the energy,"

- but you do not.
- [Demi] Right.

You're still a human.

- When I look back, when I was working...
- [Raven] Mm-hmm.

...I was undiagnosed bipolar.

I dealt with depression.
I dealt with all these things,

- and I also had a eating disorder...
- [Raven] Yeah.

...and was binge drinking on the weekends.

- Ooh, girl.
- [Demi] And yeah, I was a mess, and...

- What age? Underage?
- [Demi] This was, yeah, underage.

Damn!

[Demi] It was the escapism that
I was chasing because I couldn't...

find time off.

[reporters chattering]

This is a cry for help.

We're gonna be doing
the Lindsay Lohan walk.

We're gonna be doing
the Paris Hilton walk.

[reporter] Lovato's troubles bring to mind
the problems of another Disney star.

[Alyson]
There's actually research there that shows

people who experience fame
have an average lifespan

that's 14 years younger
than non-famous people

due to the rate of
mental health struggles...

- [Demi] Mm-hmm.
- ...and that a famous person

is four times more likely
to die by suicide.

And that fame also has,
uh, addictive properties,

- uh, similar to substances.
- [muffled crowd screaming]

So, if that's the case,

why are we hooking a child to a drug

that's fundamentally altering

their brain chemistry
and future development?

[reporter 1]
Sweet 16, screen star Judy Garland

cuts her birthday cake at a party
given by film chief Louis B. Mayer

and attended by Hollywood's younger set,

including irrepressible Mickey Rooney.

[♪ somber music playing]

[reporter 2]
Judy Garland's daughter Liza Minnelli

had requested that
her mother's funeral be held

in as dignified a manner as possible.

Some of the thousands of people
who came today...

[♪ somber music continues]

[Demi] Finding drugs was easy.

That was the only way
I knew how to escape.

But I was dealing with something that I...

that was much bigger
than what I could see.

[lights snapping]

- [♪ somber music continues]
- [muffled crowd cheering]

[sirens wailing]

[Joaquin Phoenix] [on phone] I think
it's Valium or something, I don't know.

[reporter 1] Hollywood is mourning
one of its brightest young stars,

23-year-old River Phoenix,
who collapsed and died

outside a Hollywood nightclub
early on Sunday morning.

[overlapping reporter chatter]

Lee Thompson Young was found dead.

[reporter 2] Pop star Aaron Carter
has died at the age of 34.

[reporter 3] The troubled performer
grew up in the limelight...

[Demi] I was so unhappy
and in the muck of it all.

- [echoing beep]
- [operator] [phone] About how old is she?

[caller] [phone] We just need
to get somebody out here.

[operator] [phone] Hang in there, okay?
We're on our way. Stay with the patient.

I'm gonna remain on the line
with you all the way

- until the paramedics arrive, okay?
- [constant ringing]

[Demi] I get a lot of anxiety

when I think of how close
I came to not being here at all.

- [ringing continues]
- [echoing beep]

- [inaudible]
- [EKG flatlining]

I just tapped out.

[ringing slowly fades out]

[static crackling]

[insects chirping]

We don't have to start with this one.

I did get you some other ones
that I think that you will like,

- specifically this one.
- [Demi gasps]

Oh, my God! Well, we have to do this one!

[Madison] That's what I was thinking.

We gotta start with the edges.

[puzzle pieces clicking]

[Demi]
I feel like I didn't see you very much

- for a few years of my life.
- Yeah.

And I feel like I didn't anybody very much
except for the people I was working with,

but especially when you were on
Desperate Housewives

- and I was doing Sonny with a Chance.
- [Madison] Yeah.

How's that one fit?

Oh, I think we're gonna
need the next size up.

[clears throat]

There is no next size up.

They don't make princess dresses
for girls over 7.

She's only 4 and a half.

Oh...

Wow.

[Demi] Did you ever think,

looking back on being
on Desperate Housewives,

- where it was so body shaming...
- Yeah.

...that we had a mom
with an eating disorder.

I had an eating disorder,
and here you were in this position.

Like, did that ever occur to you?

I'm kind of realizing it now,
but at the time,

I don't think any of us truly realized

that what was happening

with us was...

an eating disorder.

I don't know, it makes me a little sad.

Yeah, it makes me sad, too.

That this was something

that we were all
battling with individually

while standing next to each other.

- Yeah.
- Especially because...

[♪ soft music playing]

...that was originally the focus
of my role on Desperate Housewives,

and then, eventually,

turned into the focus of my life.

- Mm-hmm.
- [Madison] And...

I somehow believed
that I was struggling with this

completely and entirely on my own.

Yeah, I felt like I was, too.

Which was just not the case at all.

Mm-mm. We didn't see much of each other
'cause we both had our own schedules.

Right, and we were
constantly missing each other.

- [Demi] Yeah.
- Constantly.

I mean, if I wasn't working,
you were working.

We didn't really get

summers as sisters

once we moved to LA.

I would love to make up for lost time,

even though it's been so long.

- Well, look at that!
- [Madison] We did it.

So, that's how big the puzzle is,
in case you were wondering.

- [Demi] I'm so proud of us.
- [Madison giggles]

How do you understand
what is real and important

and going to feed you and nourish you,

and what is the candy?

I now am kind of reprogramming my brain.

- [Drew] Yep.
- Trying to change things that I learned

- as a child star.
- 100%.

It's deprogramming, reprogramming.

- Yeah.
- [Drew] I hope I'm not overstepping,

but you looked at that overdose and said,

"I will not go down this way.

I won't go down at all.
I'm gonna actually rise."

Yeah.

[Drew] "And I'm gonna
come out of this triumphant."

[♪ soft music playing]

I can't believe how much I respect life

knowing that I disrespected it
so many times.

I think there was plenty of my life

where I was a human
walking cautionary tale.

I have done shit no one knows I did

that is so crazy
that somehow nobody found out about,

and it's because we all had more anonymity

before social media,
especially before cell phones.

- Right, right.
- Oh, my God!

That's just the world we live in

- and a whole new trade.
- [Demi] Right.

A whole new world
of a job opportunity that's been created.

And then, that goes in with, like, likes
or "followers,"

um, how valuable one is.

When I was really young, I was 13,
I got addicted to numbers.

And so, I would see my YouTube channel,

and I would see how many views I got,

and I would see how much money it made,

six digits a month easily.

And I would see how many
subscribers it gained,

and then I wanted to beat it,

- and then I wanted to beat it.
- [Demi] Right.

[Jojo] And then I wouldn't beat it,
and I would go crazy.

- [Demi] Okay.
- Do you do Snapchat?

I don't.

Do you know how many people would die

to see you getting ready in the morning?

- [Demi] Yeah.
- You eating lunch,

- like, you know what I mean?
- [laughs]

I do it on a very extreme level.

I post 250 to 300 things a day on there.

Uh-huh.

- It's nuts.
- It's so much work!

[JoJo] It's so much work,
and my whole day is filmed.

Gimme your take on this.

Everything I eat is filmed.

Every song I sing in the car is filmed.
Everything I do gets picked apart.

Everything I do gets talked about.

There's nothing left for me
at the end of the day.

[set chatter]

[overlapping greetings]

- Hi! How are you?
- [excited chatter]

Nice to meet you guys.

[overlapping greetings]

- First of all, welcome. Great to see you.
- Thank you.

So, Demi, I'm curious,
when you first heard

that there were gonna
be a bunch of kids here,

and you were gonna be
talking to these kids,

what went through your head?

Oh, just joy.

I wish that I had been
able to ask questions

to somebody in the industry
when I was first starting out.

I didn't know what
I was getting myself into...

- Mm-hmm.
- ...and I didn't have a mentor.

There wasn't any guidance,

and there definitely is not a manual
on how to navigate this industry

- at such a young age.
- [Chris Smith] Yeah.

Like, obviously, you wanna make
a great film, TV show, or commercial,

but what matters is your well-being

and the other things in your life

- like family and friends.
- Hmm.

- That's what really matters.
- [Chris Smith] Yeah.

Today, being in the public eye,
social media is so common,

no matter what you do,
it's, like, seen right away,

and everyone has
something to say about it.

When you were going through it
at such a young age, what...

how did you feel about it
and how'd you deal with it?

I can't imagine growing up
with TikTok at your age.

[soft laughter]

There's so much pressure
to make things go viral

and to look a certain way.

It's just, it's really tough.

[♪ soft music playing]

[giggles]

[Nicola] Can you tell me what
your favorite thing is to watch on TV?

YouTube.

[Nicola] Do you watch TV?

I just watch YouTube shows.

I watch YouTube,
and I make TikTok videos for my friends,

like the dances that people do.
Sometimes I do that on TikTok.

My favorite thing to watch is YouTube.

- Charli D'Amelio.
- MrBeast.

- YouTube.
- Minecraft videos.

I like watching, like, them...

showing me what they got at Sephora

or, like, doing... get...

like, showing their morning routine
or night routine.

Can I say somebody who's a kid?

- [Nicola] Yes, better if they're a kid.
- Ryan.

He has his own show, his own video game,
and his own toys.

I don't know if he's really that famous

or companies just like, all...
um, making toys

and video games about him.

Still, that's pretty famous.

[reporter]
That's him, Ryan of Ryan's World.

[Taylor Lorenz] Ryan is like the Elvis
for anyone under the age of 10.

He blew up on YouTube
by playing with toys.

He's been on the internet since he was 3.

[Loann Kaji] Okay, let's go!

[Taylor] He makes tens of millions
of dollars in his licensing deals.

He's now one of the top-paid YouTubers
on the entire planet.

[Loann] Okay, Ryan, on a scale of one
through five, what do you think about

the Hot Wheels Color Shifters
Color Splash Science Lab?

Five!

[Taylor] This is a massive
multi-billion-dollar industry.

There's over 50 million
content creators worldwide.

[child] Hello, everyone.
Welcome back to our channel.

[Taylor] According to Goldman Sachs,
the content creator industry

is set to be worth a half
a trillion dollars in the next two years.

It dwarfs the traditional
entertainment industry.

[both] Bye!

Kids are making so much money
in an unregulated space.

Yeah! It worries me
because there's no Coogan Law for it.

You know, we had protections put in place
when I was a child actor

that said a percentage of my money
is going to be returned to me,

or given to me at 18.

Therefore, I had, like, a system in place

that guaranteed me to have
some sort of financial gain

when I was of legal age.

And to hear that these kids
are making tens of millions of dollars,

and there's no Coogan Account for that,

it just scares me because I'm like,
who's controlling that money,

and where is it going?

[Taylor] This is an entirely new industry

that's developed really
in the past decade.

The real money has only come
in the past five to seven years.

Wow, it's nice!

And there are absolutely zero safeguards

or legal protections for children
working in this industry.

- [Demi] Hi, Chris?
- Hi, Demi!

- [Demi] Hi, how's it going?
- It's going well. Thank you.

- It's so nice to meet you.
- [Chris McCarty] So nice to meet you, too.

Tell me a little bit about
what you're doing with this legislation.

I was doing this research
about family influencers,

and I was seeing that a lot of parents
are monetizing their children online,

and it doesn't seem like the children
are able to opt out of this.

It is a lot harder when
your parents are your bosses

and the set is your house.

[Demi] It feels like maybe a child

- doesn't know when to turn it off.
- [Chris McCarty] Right.

Because they have to be on all the time,
and that can be really damaging.

[Chris McCarty] Right, I have an idea
for a new policy concept,

and I went to Washington
State legislature.

Hello, Representative Reeves.

A lot of cold calling, cold emailing.

I had a phone script,
I had an email script.

Eventually, connected with
Representative Kristine Reeves.

[Demi] I wanted to talk to you
about this bill that you're passing,

and what was it that made
you wanna get involved?

[Kristine Reeves] When I got
into politics, my kids were 2 and 4,

and I was walking down
the hall in my house,

and I hear my daughter
giggling in the mirror going,

"Like and subscribe!"
And I just thought, "What on earth?

- Where did she hear that?"
- Right.

Here my 7-year-old daughter's
got my makeup brushes out,

doing a makeup tutorial
in the bathroom mirror,

and I think it just clicked
very quickly for me.

The internet is kind of this unregulated

kind of wild, wild West,
and if, if not us,

if not parents who are
paying attention to this,

who's gonna take care of it?

When I was a child actor,
I had a Coogan Account.

- [Kristine] Mm-hmm.
- Um, which puts money into a reserve

so that you can get it
whenever you turn 18.

Well, and that's what
this bill does, right?

It proposes that we would
create accounts from folks

who are basically monetizing
their children on social media

to ensure that those kids
have the opportunity

to have some compensation.

The bill also focuses on ensuring

that the kids have the opportunity
to go to these platforms

and to request that their
likeness be taken down,

to be able to kind of
take that power back.

You know, there have
to be children out there

who want to make YouTube videos.

- Just for fun.
- Yeah, my daughter, apparently.

- In the bathroom.
- [laughs] Like your daughter.

And so it's not about stopping kids
that want to be online.

It's just about protecting them.

- [Kristine] Yeah.
- [♪ soft music playing]

[Demi] Thank you so much. You're amazing.

Oh, well, it's Chris
is actually who's amazing.

Like, they, they did a lot of the homework
and the research

- to, like, make this all...
- Yeah.

...kind of come to fruition.

And so, getting the opportunity
to have somebody so young

just believe in government
the way that I do, that, you know...

'cause I fundamentally believe
government can be a force for good.

House Bill 1627 is a bill to protect kids

who are monetized on family
social media accounts.

[Alyson] Taking steps to safeguard
a child influencer's earnings

and privacy is a crucial step
in minimizing the harm

that hundreds of thousands of children

have already experienced
across traditional

and digital media,
myself being one of them.

[reporter] First-of-its-kind law
takes effect in Illinois.

[legislator 1] SB 764 applies
the Coogan Act to modern performers.

[legislator 2]
34 to 0, the measure passes.

[echoing gavel bangs]

[Demi] I can't put my fame away.

Like, I can't just say
"I don't wanna be famous,"

and that can be a little isolating.

But, I got a second chance at life,

and because of that,
I appreciate every day that I have.

You know, I feel like I have a little bit
more permission to celebrate the wins.

[excited set chatter]

[Nicola] Alright, hello, everybody!

[chatter continues]

- [Drew] Demi!
- [Demi laughs]

[people chattering]

- [audience cheering]
- [indistinct chatter]

I mean, [scoffs]
you know the road better than most

- of like how... I'm like...
- [indistinct yelling]

"How did we even get here?
Are we gonna be able to stay here?"

I always think
it's getting creative [indistinct].

- Do you still have that, like...
- [Demi] Yes, of course.

Okay, good. Oh, good!
That makes me feel so not alone.

- [Demi laughs]
- And it's like, I'm like, "Be present.

- Don't be afraid of it disappearing."
- [Demi] Yeah. Yeah.

[Drew] When will we feel stable?

I don't know, but we're gonna keep moving.

[wild cheering, applause]

[Nicola] do you think stories
help you understand yourself?

Yeah.

It's fun to write and draw
and do all those stuff.

I've actually made
a story about me before.

I feel like if I don't, like,
use my imagination

and express myself,

it kind of just is like...

like, I don't really know
if there's, like, a word for it,

but, like, when you feel like
you're not really, like,

living, I guess?

[Nicola] What is the hardest thing
about being a kid?

♪

Probably when, like,

you feel misunderstood.

Like, when nobody knows what
you're talking about but you.

I feel that way a lot.

[Nicola] And so, what do you do?

Sometimes, I write down
a song in my notebook.

[Demi] There's always been an intensity

that I've felt since I was a child

and just never wanted to have a diary

because you never know
who's gonna find it one day.

[♪ indistinct singing]

I always turn to music as a safe way

for me to feel my emotions,

and it saved me a lot of times.

♪

[door shuts]

Okay!

I'm back!

[♪ gentle music playing]

[♪ vocalizing]

Building that connection to music again
is the most important thing

- I can do for myself as an artist.
- ♪ Whoa... ♪

[♪ vocalizing continues]

[singing] ♪ It's all gonna happen ♪

♪ But not how you think ♪

So, it's just like lifting
that melody a little bit.

[♪ Oak vocalizing]

I think the second pre-chorus you should
extend until it's full length, though.

- [Demi] Okay.
- I like a short first pre,

- but it'd be nice to go what you'd like...
- [♪ restarts music]

♪ Da da da, da da da ♪

Oh, that's beautiful! I love that.

- [Oak] ♪ We'll be okay, whoa ♪
- [singer] ♪ We'll be okay ♪

[♪ vocalizing]

[Demi and singer]
♪ Wide eyes, wild heart ♪

♪ Blowing out candles ♪

- ♪ Blowing out candles ♪
- [Oak] ♪ Wishing on stars ♪

- ♪ Wishing on stars ♪
- [Oak] ♪ Stars ♪

- ♪ One day ♪
- Yeah, and then so you're gonna have to...

♪ You'll bring ♪

♪ It's all gonna happen,
but not how you think... ♪

♪

If you had to do everything
from the very start

all over again, is it worth it?

[Demi] I try to live by the philosophy
of never having regrets.

[Chris Smith] Mm-hmm.

And I've made some really
questionable choices in my life,

but I wouldn't end up
where I am in this moment

right now today
had I not made all the choices

that I made in my life
leading up to this point.

- [Chris Smith] Oh, there we go!
- [Demi] Wait, do one more.

- Do your iconic pose!
- Wait, what's my iconic pose?

- [kids squeal]
- Okay, okay, ready?

- [laughing] Alright.
- [fan] Yes!

- [laughter, chatter]
- ♪ Wide eyes ♪

♪ Wild heart ♪

♪ Blowing out candles ♪

♪ Wishing on stars ♪

♪ One day, you'll blink ♪

♪ It's all gonna happen ♪

- ♪ But not how you can think ♪
- [Demi] You look so beautiful!

- [crowd cheering]
- ♪ Can't stop you, don't want to ♪

♪ Here's what I wish I knew ♪

When I do throw that
flare out into the sky,

that flare attracts others.

It's that connection where they understand
and know where I was coming from.

Here's to growth, to the amazing memories

that we've made this year!

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,

five, four, three, two,

one. Happy New Year!

♪ The sharks in the water
will teach you to swim ♪

♪ The thorns on the roses
will thicken your skin ♪

♪ People might hurt you
and break promises ♪

♪ But darling, I promise you this ♪

♪ You'll be okay, kid ♪

♪ You'll okay, kid ♪

♪ You'll be okay ♪

[♪ song ends]

[♪ "You'll Be OK, Kid"
by Demi Lovato playing]

♪ Slow down, deep breath ♪

♪ Don't let the monsters
scare you to death ♪

♪ They'll try to tear you apart ♪

♪ But know that you're perfect
the way that you are ♪

♪ I know you can't see it now ♪

♪ But someday, it all works out ♪

♪ The sharks in the water
will teach you to swim ♪

♪ The thorns on the roses
will thicken your skin ♪

♪ People might hurt you
and break promises ♪

♪ But, darling, I promise you this ♪

♪ You'll be okay, kid ♪

♪ You'll be okay, kid ♪

♪ You'll make it like I did ♪

♪ You'll be okay, kid ♪

♪ You'll be okay, kid ♪

♪ You'll be okay, kid ♪

♪ You'll be okay, kid ♪

♪ You'll be okay, kid ♪

♪ You'll be okay ♪

[♪ gentle music playing]

[♪ music fades out]

[shuffling]

[shimmering]