Celebs with a sad past

Not everything in Hollywood is glitter and glamour. Of course, the big stars live in the most luxurious, gigantic villas and often don't have enough with just one swimming pool — in some cases, it's definitely started from the bottom, now we’re here. Some celebs are born rich, or born with the right last name for connections (Emma Roberts for example, as the niece of Julia Roberts, or the entire Kardashian family), many are also born with nothing. In fact, some big stars have faced so many setbacks in their lives that you can't imagine them still standing smiling at the little bird on the red carpet. These celebs for example.

1. Keanu Reeves

The internet loves Keanu Reeves. The whole world loves Keanu Reeves. And rightly so. But what you might not know is that he was abandoned by his father at a young age. At 29, he lost his good friend River Phoenix to an overdose. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing: he also lost his child, who was stillborn. His relationship didn't survive that trauma, but eighteen months later he also lost his (then ex-)girlfriend when she died in a car accident. How much misery can someone have in one life?

2. Charlize Theron

This stunning actress grew up on a farm near Johannesburg, South Africa. Unfortunately, she didn't have a nice time there: her mother shot her father when she was 15 years old. This happened in 1991 and it was in self-defense. They were held at gunpoint when her father came home drunk, he shot but the bullets missed Charlize and her mother. She described her father as ‘a very sick man’.

3. Kelsey Grammer

One of my favorite comedy series of all time (sharing the top spot with Friends) is Frasier, a spin-off of the series Cheers. And when you see the main character Frasier (played by Kelsey Grammer) you really wouldn't think he has been through so much misery. In 1968, a man set his father Frank's car on fire; when he tried to escape, Frank was shot dead. The shooter was found not guilty of murder due to insanity. Seven years later, when Kelsey was twenty, his sister Karen was raped and murdered. The man who is imprisoned for this could be released early in the coming years. Something Kelsey is fighting hard against, that this doesn't happen. Another five years after losing his sister, he lost both half-brothers at the same time in a diving incident. Holy. Shit. It won't surprise you that Grammer has struggled with alcohol and drug problems for years.

4. Jack Nicholson

He grew up not knowing who his father was, and the woman he thought was his sister turned out to be his mother. Very ugly: he found this out when he was already a famous actor and the tabloids had dug into his past. Not exactly the way you want to find out something like that. Later, when a biography about him was written, the creators were contacted by a woman who claimed to be married to his biological father. Instead of informing Nicholson about this, they decided to just publish everything in the book. And so he found out through the media who his father was. Again: very ugly.

5. Leighton Meester

How Leighton Meester grew up couldn't be more different from her Gossip Girl character Blair Waldorf. Her mother gave birth to her in prison, after which she spent sixteen months in a foster home; afterwards, she was raised by her grandmother. When her mother was released, she divorced Leighton's father, after which the family fell into serious financial trouble. Leighton was determined to make it big as a model or actress and for that, the whole family moved to New York, not the most affordable city. Nice: Leighton herself is not negative about her past and says about her mother: ‘She’s the proof that the dream can be had by all.’

6. Drew Barrymore

Maybe not entirely fitting in this list, because the problems for Drew Barrymore mainly came from the fame she had at an early age. As a little girl, she landed a role in E.T. and that marked the beginning of her Hollywood career. But that also meant that she was drinking alcohol as a seven-year-old girl and by eleven, she was a serious alcoholic. A year later, she was addicted to various kinds of drugs and for her thirteenth birthday, she was sent to a rehab clinic, where she would stay for eighteen months. Wow.