Child Star

Famous childstars on average die 14 years earlier and they have a 4 times increased chance of dying by suicide. Those are the grim statistics behind this documentary which gives a detailed insight into the Disney childstar Demi Lovato... whom I have never heard of but apparently she was HUGELY popular.

We mostly get to see demi lovato talk to other childstars (Drew Barrymore and Christina Ricci for instance) and the recurring theme is that almost all of them suffered from their huge fame and started to use drugs and alchohol to cope with a life they had no real control over.

These childstars are being squeezed out for every penny they can make and the more popular they become the more a product they become up to a point that certain childstars became wall street products which could be sold and bought at the stock exchange! Currently the childstar content is valued at over 500 billion dollars.

Incredible to see how these kids are being treated. Money, money and more money is the culprit behind this behaviour towards these kids whose only dream is to become famous, but adults wanna make money of their fame. The way in which money overrules the healthy development of childstars' lives is what this documentary is all about.

This documentary starts out unassuming and without the bleak and grim statistics, but have some patience and please watch it till the end, because then you get to see the real damage done to this famous childstars...

Really liked this. Ive seen demi's other documentaries and i'm usually impressed, but this was definitely the best one. Seeing the same issues, across different generations, they really do only get better in the eyes of law, and worse with the social media and instant access everyone has these days. It was really cool seeing all these faces i recognized from growing up, and how it's impacted their lives. I think overall, i might feel the worst for jojo siwa. Jojo is the first child star, to truly grow up with social media in it's full effect. We saw miley and bieber live with it, and they molded it, but now, jojo is expected to do all of these extra things, on extra platforms. With more merch as things become "trending" online faster than ever. Its honestly baffling. I wish good things for these people.

Some directors like to make themselves a part of the project, much to the detriment of the project. Nas is guilty of making himself part of docs he directs. Demi Lovato apparently does the same. This is a movie about her experience with child stardom, with some comments from other people who experienced similar. That being said, nothing was new in the doc, just rehashed information she previously included in other projects, with one exception: most states, Florida included, don't have Coogan Laws to protect the income of children; similarly, there seem to be zero (or one with Washington State) that protect child internet performers' incomes. Otherwise, the doc is a massive waste of time.

This is one show that canvasses the importance of mental health and its effects on child stars from the 1980s to today's rising YouTube sensations. Lovato's compassionate conveyance of such sensitive information is profound and features several A-list stars who faced the same struggles she, very publicly, has faced while working in the entertainment industry. This documentary is relevant for a wide range of demographics, from legal experts and healthcare workers to alcoholics and kids from the 80s, 90s, and today. This film encompasses how, for some celebrities, achieving fame is a miraculous dream and a hellacious nightmare for others.

There was too many people in this short time to get into anything other than surface level, this should have been a series with one child star per episode. Hour long for each person, details of struggles and lack of support in The industry and how they coped and got to survive today, so disappointing.

Think it is commendable though to be at least approaching these topics and having Demi as the lead made sense.

Please can someone try this again with more grit. Alyson has so much to her history and we heard hardly any of it just that her and Demi half got on half didn't but understood each other...