Child actors who went off the rails… from heroin-addicted star who robbed BANK to sex tape scandal and joining a ‘cult’

PINT-SIZED and extremely talented, these young stars wowed audiences with their phenomenal performance onscreen.

But fame hasn't always brought a happy ending to some of our favourite child actors.

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This week, The Sixth Sense star Haley Joel Osment was arrested for public intoxication and possession of an unknown controlled substance, according to TMZ.

It's claimed cops were called to popular skiing destination Mammoth Mountain resort, in California, after the actor, 37, was said to be wasted at 2pm.

The arrest comes at a difficult time for Haley, 37, whose home was "completely destroyed" in the devastating LA fires in January.

This wasn't his first brush with the law. Back in 2006, his squeaky-clean image was ruined after he crashed his car while drunk and in possession of marijuana.

Haley, who starred in the supernatural thriller at the age of 11, broke a rib and injured his shoulder when his vehicle career into a mailbox's brick pillar and flipped over.

Later the Oscar-nominated star was fined $1,500 and sentenced to three years of probation. He was also required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and spend 60 hours on an alcohol rehabilitation programme.

Haley is among a long list of child stars whose lives truly hit the skids after their short-lived fame, leading to shocking events that could have been lifted straight from a Hollywood script.

They got their big break playing bassist Katie in the 2003 movie School of Rock, but Rivkah Reyes says fame wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Rivkah, who was 10 at the time and now uses the gender-neutral pronoun "they", revealed they were bullied at school and became a "raging addict."

They said: "People were either really nice or really mean. There was no middle ground."

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They added that seeing themselves on screen made them think they had "a fat belly and no breasts," and they developed an eating disorder.

In an article in Medium in 2020, when Rivkah had been in recovery from alcohol and addiction for two years, they wrote: "From the age of 14, I used drugs, alcohol, sex, food, and self-harm to numb all of this pain.

"I've survived dozens of toxic relationships and three suicide attempts.

"I'm not saying all of this is because I played bass in a movie when I was a kid but because I spent over a decade terrified that I'd peaked at 10 years old."

Rivkah has had small parts since and continues to act.

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Jake Lloyd was just 10 when he played a young Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace, alongside Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor.

With such hype over the movie's release, Jake was doing up to 60 interviews a day, and such attention resulted in him being bullied at school.

Jake, who had previously appeared in Jingle All The Way, said: "My entire school life was really a living hell."

He only made a couple more movies - one remained unreleased, and a documentary about Tibetan refugees.

He said: "I've learned to hate it when the cameras are pointed at me."

Jake was jailed in 2015 after leading police on a high speed chase in South Carolina, USA. Soon afterwards, he transferred to a psychiatric unit.

According to TMZ, his mum, Lisa, filed a police report three months before the car chase claiming Jake had "stomped on her three or four times" but didn't press charges.

In 2020 the family released a statement to say Jake had moved closer to home and had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

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Dustin Diamond made his name playing wacky Screech in the Saved by the Bell TV series - starting off in its first incarnation as Good Morning, Miss Bliss in 1988, until 2000, with Saved by the Bell: The New Class, when he played the high school principal's assistant.

Afterwards he toured with his own stand-up comedy and appeared on game shows like The Weakest Link and Celebrity Boxing 2.

But in 2001, he filed for bankruptcy and flogged T-shirts emblazoned with "I paid $15 to save Screeech's house" - which had an extra 'e' in the name to get around copyright.

In 2006, he released a sex tape - Screeched: Saved by the Smell - but later admitted on Oprah Winfrey's show that he didn't appear in it, but rather it was a stunt double.

He was arrested in Wisconsin, US, for possession of a switchblade, which he allegedly pulled during a bar fight in which a man was stabbed.

He served three months in jail for carrying a concealed weapon and disorderly conduct.

He died from lung cancer in February 2021, aged 44.

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Two and a Half Men star Angus T Jones got heavily into religion and joined the Seventh-day Adventists.

His family was concerned he was falling in with "those cults".

Angus, now 31, turned his back on the programme that made his name, urging fans to stop "filling their heads with filth".

He said: "You can not be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like that."

He later backtracked and apologised to his co-stars, but quit the show in 2013 because it was "making light of topics in our world that are really problems for a lot of people".

He stepped out of the limelight, went to college and appeared in a 10-part web series by comedian Louis CK. Angus also became the president of entertainment at an events company.

He said in 2016, after seemingly stepping away from his religion: "There’s no changing anything. There’s only moving forward.”

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Dana Plato was best known for rich girl Kimberly Drummond on the hit Eighties sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, alongside fellow child actor, the late Gary Coleman, who battled substance abuse.

The Californian actress started her career as an extra in The Six Million Dollar Man, when she was 11, before appearing in Exorcist II, as well as a number of American TV shows before landing Diff'rent Strokes at 14.

She failed to achieve the same sort of success when she left the show in 1984 after falling pregnant with her son Tyler.

In 1991, she was handed five years' probation after demanding $164 (£120) from a cashier in a video store while holding a pellet gun.

The following year, she spent 30 days in jail for forging a prescription for anxiety medication Diazepam and breaking her probation. She also entered a drug rehab programme.

On May 7, 1999, she told shock jock Howard Stern she had recovered from a drug and alcohol addiction and had been "sober for the longest time".

The following day, she was found dead, after overdosing on Valium and another painkiller, aged 34.

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By his own admission, Home and Away star Felix Dean had the world at his feet.

He landed the part of VJ Patterson when he was 10 and played the role from 2007 to 2014.

But after leaving the soap, he failed to find work and ended up homeless by January 2021.

In October that year, he was arrested after allegedly attacking a tobacconist with a hammer and was sent to prison on remand.

It was the fourth time he had been arrested in two years.

Felix pleaded guilty to assault with intent to rob and two counts of recklessly damaging property. He also attacked an Uber driver and smashed another person's window, which was captured on CCTV.

He summed up his demise in a social media post that read: "From the good life to struggle street."

Sadly Felix's troubles have continued. In March this year, the 27-year-old was banned from driving for four months and fined $250(AUD) after testing positive for meth after crashing his car.

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In 2022, it was revealed former Flight of the Navigator star Joey Cramer was jailed for two years for bank robbery.

The mugshot of the star, now 51, was a huge contrast to the sweet kid who appeared in the 1986 sci-fi movie, in which Joe co-starred with a young Sarah Jessica Parker.

After filming wrapped, Joey was bullied by his classmates and found a new group of friends - "misfits" who drank and smoked weed.

He previously told The Daily Star: "I got into cocaine at a really young age, 14 or 15."

He went through rehab when he was 20 and stayed clean for a decade before falling off the wagon at 30.

In 2016, when he was hooked on heroin and homeless, he robbed a bank in British Columbia, Canada, as a way to get into a correctional facility where he could get treatment.

Joey spent two years in prison before attempting to relaunch his acting career. Since then the 51-year-old has appeared in several short films.

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The Hogwarts pupils who found fame in the seven-film blockbuster series were aged from 11 to 14 when they were cast.

Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry Potter, admitted that reaching the dizzy heights of fame at such a young age led him to develop an unhealthy relationship with booze.

And Emma Watson disclosed on the reunion show, Return to Hogwarts, that she felt "lonely" and considered quitting before the end of the series.

Jamie Waylett, who played Crabbe in the first five films, was arrested in 2009 for possessing marijuana. He also pleaded guilty to growing the plant at his mother's house.

He was sentenced to 120 hours of community service.

In March 2012, he was sentenced to two years in prison for "violent disorder" during the London riots the previous autumn.

He admitted swigging from a stolen bottle of Champagne but was cleared of intending to use a petrol bomb he was pictured holding.