The Other Side of Hollywood

Everyone has a dark past. Even celebrities.

And because I know you're curious, here are a few things you might not have known about your favorite movie stars:

James Dean was sexually molested by his church's minister, after his mom passed away. He revealed the tragic memory to Elizabeth Taylor while they were filming Giant.

Rosie O'Donnell revealed in a best-selling memoir, Celebrity Detox, that when she was a kid, she used to break her fingers and hands with a baseball bat, in order to get her parents attention.

When Leighton Meester was born, her mom was in prison for drug smuggling. The Gossip girl star was raised by her grandmother, while her mom finished serving the rest of her sentence.

Poor Jack Nicholson was innocently enjoying being the hottest new movie star on the block, when a journalist turned his life upside down. In 1974, while researching a story about the actor, a Time magazine reporter accidentally discovered that Jack's parents were not his parents! They were his grandparents, and his real mother was his older sister, who had been a sassy showgirl during the 1930s.

When he was a teenager, Mark Wahlberg wasn't a fan of non-white people. At 15, he got in trouble for throwing rocks at a group of African-American children on a field trip and calling them racial slurs. At 16, he randomly attacked a middle-aged Vietnamese man on the street with a stick, shouting "fucking Vietnam shit" and then attacked another Vietnamese man, permanently blinding him. He was charged with attempted murder for the unprovoked attacks, but only served 45 days in jail.

In 2010, a photo of a sad Keanu eating a sandwich alone sparked a world-wide meme. Everyone thought it was hysterical. Unfortunately, not many people probably realized what was behind those unhappy eyes. In 1999, the love of his life, the gorgeous production assistant Jennifer Syme, gave birth to their stillborn daughter, Ava. In 2001, the 28-year-old was killed in a drunk driving accident after attending a party. She is buried next to their daughter. Friends have said in interviews that Keanu remains a changed man.


Did you know any of these facts? Does it change the way you feel about these celebrities?