It’s no secret that former child stars often experience a rebellious phase as a result of finding fame at such a young age – and when it comes to shedding their wholesome image, many like to go the extra mile.
From Playboy shoots and pornography, to the more modern route of OnlyFans, there’s a plethora of famous faces who have stripped off and waved goodbye to their innocent reputations once and for all.
For some, it is a way to earn money when acting work has dried up, and for others, it can be the perfect way to break free after being pushed into the industry by an overbearing parent and to shake off the squeaky clean image.
Ex-Nickelodeon child star Madisyn Shipman recently revealed that adult content creation has helped her to ‘reclaim her power’ after suffering from an ‘identity crisis’ after starring in popular kid’s series Game Shakers.
The 20-year-old admitted that she spent years feeling ‘repressed in terms of sexuality and showing her body’ due to the network telling her that she ‘constantly’ has to be ‘presented as a little girl’.
Ex-Nickelodeon child star Madisyn Shipman recently posed for Playboy at the age of 20
Madisyn shot to stardom as Kenzie Bell in the Nickelodeon show Game Shakers in 2015
The actress said that adult content creation has helped her ‘reclaim her power’ after suffering from an ‘identity crisis’ after her time in the kid’s series
Madisyn has a profile on Playboy’s new creator platform, which launched in May and is similar to OnlyFans, where people can pay creators for exclusive access to photos and videos
Speaking to Fox News recently, she said her saucy new gig on Playboy’s new creator platform is ‘so rewarding’, revealing that it has given her ‘so much financial freedom’ and introduced her to ‘like-minded people’.
However, Madisyn isn’t the first child actor to crave a career change – and she no doubt won’t be the last – with the likes of Drew Barrymore, Lindsay Lohan, and teen pop star Tiffany, all previously posing for Playboy magazine.
Former wild child Drew Barrymore doesn’t regret posing for Playboy weeks before her 20th birthday
Drew Barrymore, pictured in 1982 aged seven, with her mother Jaid Barrymore
Drew was thrust into the limelight as a young child when she landed a part in Steven Spielberg’s 1992 hit movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
The actress graced the cover of the January 1995 issue of Playboy when she was 20 years old
Drew was placed in rehab when she was just 13 and was emancipated, aged 14
Drew Barrymore is arguably one of the most famous child actors of all time thanks to her role in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 hit movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
But her career actually kicked off aged just eleven months old in a dog food commercial, long before she went on to land roles in Never Been Kissed, Scream, and Charlie’s Angels.
Drew, now 48, is well aware of the impact of childhood fame having picked up a drinking problem as a kid, before being admitted to rehab for 18 months at 13 years old after cutting her wrists. She was emancipated, aged 14, and moved into an apartment alone, taking on jobs in a coffeehouse and cleaning toilets.
Shortly before her 20th birthday, Drew posed for the cover of the January 1995 issue of Playboy in a pair of pink lace knickers and a black and white T-shirt featuring the magazine’s iconic logo.
Another image shows her flashing her nipples in a sheer top and wearing purple lacy underwear.
Speaking at the time about why she decided to do Playboy, Drew told HFPA: ‘It was like my own personal adventure. I totally had a great time with it and I think I’m very comfortable in my skin and to me, the human body is a really beautiful thing.’
She spoke about it earlier this year during an interview with Pamela Anderson on The Drew Barrymore Show, and said it allowed her to take back her ‘power’.
‘I felt like when I was doing Playboy, I was taking my power back,’ she revealed. ‘But when I was doing Playboy and being a wild child and being free and discovering myself and growing up… I was loving it and having so much fun and don’t regret a thing and love it, I didn’t know I’d have kids later.’
Parent Trap star Lindsay Lohan was reportedly paid close to $1million for her raunchy Playboy shoot
Lindsay Lohan, pictured here in 1998, began her career as a child model at the tender age of three
Lindsay played the dual roles of twins, Hallie and Annie Parker, in the 1998 hit movie The Parent Trap
The redhead graced the cover of Playboy in early 2012 and was reportedly paid close to $1million for the shoot
Similar to Drew, Lindsay Lohan began her career at the tender age of three as a child model with Ford Models and appeared in over 60 television commercials for brands including Pizza Hut and Wendy’s.
She landed a role on TV soap Another World, aged 10, before going on to play the dual roles of twins Hallie and Annie Parker in the 1998 hit movie The Parent Trap.
Successful movie roles followed including Freaky Friday opposite Jamie Lee Curtis, and the cult hit Mean Girls, in which she played a former home educated teen navigating life at an American high school.
But in her personal life, Lindsay was battling a series of legal problems and arrests, and her January 2007 admittance into a rehab center marked the first of six court-ordered rehab stints over period of six years.
In the midst of all of this, the redhead graced the cover of Playboy in early 2012 and was reportedly paid close to $1million for the photos, taken in a style reminiscent of the nude photograph of Marilyn Monroe who graced the debut issue in 1953.
At the time, Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner tweeted: ‘The Lindsay Lohan January-February Double Issue is breaking sales records.’
A Playboy spokesman wouldn’t give sales numbers, but the official did say it was selling ‘very well’.
The 10-page nude pictorial was accompanied by an interview with Lindsay, in which she said she had learned to be accountable for her mistakes and admitted that her ‘stubbornness at 18- and 19-years-old got in the way’.
Former Disney actress Bella Thorne broke OnlyFans records when she joined the platform in 2020
Bella Thorne played the role of CeCe Jones in the Disney Channel sitcom Shake It Up
The redhead is no stranger to stripping off these days and joined OnlyFans in August 2020
In 2021, Bella was the second highest earning content creator on OnlyFans, earning $11million a month
Bella Thorne was six years old when she made her film debut in 2003’s Stuck on You.
The redhead star – who is now 25 – has since enjoyed roles in television series such as The O.C., Dirty Sexy Money, and My Own Worst Enemy – as well as entering the world of Disney in 2010 with a part on Wizards of Waverly Place.
This was also the year that Bella landed a co-lead role on the Disney Channel sitcom Shake It Up alongside Zendaya, in which she played CeCe Jones – a dancer with ambitions for a career in the spotlight despite having dyslexia.
She stayed on the series until 2013 and enjoyed various other TV and movie roles afterwards, and has since admitted that she felt restricted while working on the Disney show.
‘After Disney, I had the opportunity to find my true self and that is reflected in all my work from acting, producing, directing, and writing. I have more artistic freedom to continue to express myself’ Bella said in a previous interview.
In August 2019, Bella made her directorial debut on Pornhub with the film Her & Him, and a year later she made the decision to join OnlyFans and become the first person to earn $1million in the first 24 hours of joining the platform.
Her move to the adult-only site was controversial after she offered $200 pay-per-view photos that she claimed were ‘naked’, but actually showed her wearing lingerie.
This led to a slew of chargebacks and new restrictions that limited the amount that sex workers on the platform could charge and reduced payouts to creators to monthly rather than weekly – but OnlyFans denied the changes were related to Bella.
At the time, the actress responded to the backlash via Twitter and claimed she had ‘wanted to bring attention’ to the platform as ‘the more people on the site the more likely of a chance to normalize the stigmas’ and to ‘remove the stigma behind sex, sex work, and the negativity that surrounds the word SEX itself by bringing a mainstream face to it’.
Bella also added that in joining OnlyFans she had hoped she could help ‘to create more revenue for content creators on the site’.
In 2021, Bella was the second highest earning content creator on the platform, earning $11million a month – but it seems her account no longer exists.
Jennifer Lopez’s Maid in Manhattan co-star Tyler Posey stripped off for OnlyFans in 2021
Tyler Posey starred in Maid in Manhattan alongside Jennifer Lopez when he was 11 years old
Tyler set up an OnlyFans account in 2021 as a way to try and ‘stay in touch’ with his fans
The Teen Wolf actor admitted he felt ‘weird’ and ‘stupid’ when posing naked
Tyler Posey began working as an actor in his early years with a handful of roles in children’s films and television series.
By the age of 11, he had starred in the Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie Collateral Damage and Maid in Manhattan alongside Jennifer Lopez.
Some of his television credits include Without A Trace, Into The West, and Brothers & Sisters, and by the age of 20, Tyler had landed the main role in MTV’s reimagining of the hit 1985 film Teen Wolf.
The supernatural series ran from 2011 until 2017, and more recently, the California-born actor reprised the role of Scott McCall in Teen Wolf: The Movie, which was released in January 2023.
But Taylor also ventured down the OnlyFans route, setting up an account in 2021 as a way to try and ‘stay in touch’ with his fans.
‘I’m trying my hardest to be artistic as possible with the content I put out. Because I don’t want it to just be porn, you know? That’s not what I do and I don’t want to take it away from the people that are doing that,’ he said during an interview with E’s The Rundown in February 2021.
He went on to say: ‘I just can’t pose naked and take myself seriously. It’s weird. It feels stupid. I feel like an object. I’m still figuring out my footing in it, and we’ll see where it goes.’
A few months earlier, in a November 2020 interview, he said: ‘I’m nude a lot and I wanted to be more open-minded about social media, so I just started posting.
‘I love being nude, because you’re not born wearing clothes. I want to go out the same way that I came in. I want to die naked, and since 2020 has been a little scary, I feel I could die any second now, so I want to be ready.’
Boy Meets World actress Maitland Ward retired from mainstream acting and joined the world of porn
Maitland Ward pictured with her Boy Meets World co-stars Matthew Lawrence and Will Friedle (right)
Maitland retired from mainstream acting in 2007 and began performing in pornographic films in 2019
The redhead built up an online following by posting sexy photos of herself on Snapchat and Instagram
Maitland Ward was a fresh-faced 17-year-old when she landed the role of Jessica Forrester on CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful back in 1994.
She went on to play Rachel McGuire on the sixth and seventh seasons of the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World from 1998 until 2000.
Maitland starred in a handful of shows after that, and also had a small part in the 2004 film White Chicks.
But in 2007 she made the decision to retire from mainstream acting and started posting nude and topless photographs of herself on Snapchat and Instagram before landing her first role in a pornographic film, Drive, in 2019.
She has since starred in over 20 adult movies.
In September 2022 Maitland released her memoir, Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood, in which she shared the ups and downs of her career and detailed her move into the adult entertainment industry.
In an opinion piece for Daily Beast, Maitland wrote at the time: ‘As I started to walk the path toward adult entertainment, naysayers would say I was just seeking cheap fame. That, or I had been drugged, forced into it, or I just lost my mind.
‘I wanted a long-term commitment doing something I loved and that I could be proud of,’ she continued. ‘I wanted years. And that’s something mainstream Hollywood has long denied me. Porn has given me that.’
Wizards of Waverly Place star Dan Benson is certainly no stranger to stripping off these days
Dan Benson was best known for playing the role of Zeke Beakerman in television series Wizards of Waverly Place
The former Disney star decided to join the world of OnlyFans in the summer of 2022
Dan admitted he doesn’t ‘feel bad’ about stripping off on the adult platform
Dan Benson landed his first acting roles as a teenager and starred in television shows from Phil of the Future to American Dreams, and Zoey 101.
In 2007, he started playing the role of Zeke Beakerman in the Disney series Wizards of Waverly Place alongside Selena Gomez.
Dan was on the show until 2011, starring in 32 episodes, before joning Nuclear Family and Smoky Knights.
Fast forward to 2022, and Dan signed up to OnlyFans and started posting countless topless shots.
In a TikTok video posted in June 2023, the 35-year-old shared opened up about his journey into adult entertainment, revealing he ‘felt like a badass’.
‘I expected a lot more hate, and instead people have just been like, “Go you!” Mental health wise, I feel good. I don’t feel bad about myself, I feel kind of like a badass, a little bit,’ he said.
‘It’s a really weird experience now to be kind of way more famous than I was before just because I made this extreme choice into doing more, like, sex work.’
Dan also revealed that he often gets asked to do certain things that he doesn’t feel comfortable with.
‘There are plenty of people on a daily basis asking me and demanding I do things that I don’t feel comfortable doing.’ he said. ‘But I’ve kind of just been in position to be like, “No, you’re gonna get what you’re gonna get. You’re gonna get what I’m comfortable with sharing with the world… which now is quite a bit”.’
