Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox recently revealed that he was dumpster diving before he became a household name. In his documentary “Still,” Fox talked about how challenging it was for him to launch his Hollywood career after dropping out of high school to move from Canada when he was 17. Fox admitted that it took some time for he got his iconic role as Alex on “Family Ties.” While working some small gigs, he sold all his apartment furniture, living on a McDonald’s and jelly packets he stole from restaurants.
Dolly Parton
Although she doesn’t reminisce on her childhood through that lens, Dolly Parton grew up in extreme poverty. In a 2016 interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” Parton said her childhood made her who she is and wouldn’t trade anything for being raised in the Great Smoky Mountains. She added that she’s never been ashamed of her people, no matter how dirty or poor they might’ve been. The fourth of 12 children in her family, Parton was born in 1946, growing up in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Much of her childhood was spent sharing a one-bedroom home with her parents and siblings. In a 1978 “Playboy” interview, Parton shared that her family only bathed once a week.
Chris Pratt
After becoming a Marvel superhero in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films and starring in the “Jurassic World” movies, Chris Pratt has become a global superstar, but his life wasn’t always glamourous. He had an early interest in acting, taking a community college course in actor before finishing high school, but he never finished his first class. Instead, he started working odd jobs before moving to Hawaii and living in a van. However, in an interview with The Independent in 2014, Pratt shared that Hawaii was an “awesome place to be homeless.” In 2020, Pratt shared that his financial struggles went back further, mentioning in an Instagram Live video that he and his family often relied on food banks growing up.
Shania Twain
Shania Twain has been a country icon for years, but there was a time when she didn’t know where her next meal would come from. Growing up in a low-income family, in a 2020 interview with “The Guardian,” Twain recalled that she started working as a singer at 8 years old, spending nights playing in bars to help her parents. In a separate “Nightline” interview, Twin shared that despite helping out financially, there were days that she would go to school hungry. She said it was challenging to concentrate on an empty stomach, but she didn’t want to ask her classmates for food because she was embarrassed.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in Austria in 1947. In a 1997 interview with Johnny Vaughn, he explained that he grew up with nothing. His family had no money, refrigerator, or television. In a 2019 tweet, he discussed his family’s financial situation, sharing that they also didn’t have running water in his childhood home, where he lived with his older brother and parents. In the tweet, he explained that he didn’t know what a shower was until he joined the gym at 15. In a separate interview, he shared how his mother would travel from farm to farm, begging for food.
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire, but she had to work hard to get there. Her mother was a teen when she had her, and Winfrey lived with her grandmother for the first six years of her life on a Mississippi farm. Their financial situation was so awful that Winfrey often wore potato sack dresses and had to go to a well because the home didn’t have running water. When she was six, Winfrey’s grandmother fell ill, so she was sent to Milwaukee to live with her mother in a boardinghouse. Her mother worked as a maid but still struggled financially, relying on welfare to care for her family. After she gave birth to another child, Winfrey was sent to live with her father in Tennessee. She would move back and forth between her parents but preferred living with her father.
