Disney Channel has been responsible for propelling many child stars to fame, such as Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Zac Efron to name a few.
But there have been many more who have also spoke out about working with the channel and how it did not prove to be the life-long dream they had hoped for, with claims being made about mountainous pressure and needing to keep up their working personas in real life, with it all becoming too much at times.
The famed children’s channel has also been responsible for launching the careers of the likes of Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato and singing sensation Sabrina Carpenter too.
Many of these stars who are now adults have since addressed their time growing up in the spotlight, claiming things weren’t always as they appeared.
From MeToo claims, “being haunted” by young television past and sadly one beloved star’s tragic death, we explore what life was really like for the child stars of Disney Channel.
Demi Lovato
Camp Rock star Demi Lovato has been at the centre of some incredibly serious allegations in recent times.
At 15-years-old the teen star got her first big TV break when she was discovered by Disney Channel during an open call audition in her hometown of Dallas, Texas and later made her debut on the short series As the Bell Rings in 2007.
It wasn’t until 2009 that her on-screen career ramped up a gear when she landed a starring role in Sonny With A Chance. Despite her surge in fame, it wasn’t always happy times.
In 2021, at the start of the MeToo Movement, Demi bravely stepped forward claiming she had been raped during her time working on a Disney movie but alleged her fellow co-star “never got taken out of the movie they were in”.
Her claims were brought to surface in the four part Youtube series Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil, in which she explained: “We were hooking up but I said, ‘Hey, this is not going any further. I’m a virgin, and I don’t want to lose it this way.’ And that didn’t matter to them, they did it anyways.”
She added: “And I internalised it and I told myself it was my fault, because I still went in the room with him. I still hooked up with him. The Christian, Southern girl in me didn’t see it [as rape] because sex was not normalised as a child or in the South.
“And, you know what, f*** it, I’m just gonna say it: My #MeToo story is me telling somebody that someone did this to me, and they never got in trouble for it.”
Bella Thorne
Child star Bella has also spoken openly about the hardship she faced of being in the public eye from such an early age after breaking into acting when she was just six years old.
At age 13, she’d landed major roles in the likes of Shake It Up as CeCe Jones. Despite her enormous fame, she struggled with the rules and regulation that she needed uphold while working with the channel and claims she was even forbidden from wearing a bikini on the beach.
On Emily Ratajkowski’s High Low With EmRata podcast, Bella said: “I almost got fired off the Disney Channel ’cause I was 14, and I wore a two-piece on the beach. This stylist that I was hanging out with put this chain on me. It’s like a body chain? I don’t know! I don’t care.
“There was a fan, they got a photo of me on the beach, I almost got fired. It was all over the media — it was literally viral in that time. And it was ‘How dare this little girl do this? This is so disgusting.'”
She added: “They were like, ‘Hey, we’re getting a lot of heat for this. Everyone’s getting heat for this because you’re in a bikini on a beach, so she needs to make sure she goes out in boy shorts and a loose t-shirt next time she’s at the beach.'”
Selena Gomez
In a bombshell interview with Vanity Fair in 2023, Selena revealed to the publication that she no longer felt haunted by her Disney past. This after the Wizards of Waverly Place actress opened up on being silenced as a Disney star in her 2022 Apple documentary, My Mind and Me.
Speaking about her on-screen past with the children’s channel, she told the publication: “I definitely feel free of it. Sometimes I get triggered. It’s not that I’m ashamed of my past, it’s just that I’ve worked so hard to find my own way. I don’t want to be who I was. I want to be who I am.”
On the documentary she opened up on her time spent with the television giant, stating: “I don’t want to do that ever again. I feel like a product. It was making me angry. You know what it is? It made me feel like Disney.”
Selena added: “I just spent years of my life trying to not be that. And I f***king look like a witch with the outfit, doing it all with the wand again.”
Cameron Boyce
Cameron was best known for playing the villain kid character Carlos in the film Descendants: The Rise of Red, with his character widely known for being the son of the evil Cruella de Vil in the three movie musicals.
Before hitting the big screen, Cameron had already found Disney fame on the popular show Jessie, in which he played the likeable Luke Ross, alongside co-stars such as Debby Ryan and Peyton List.
Sadly, five years ago, Cameron died from a seizure caused by his epilepsy at the age of just 20 – and fans across the world were left totally devastated by his passing.
A statement to ABC News at the time, read: “Cameron’s tragic passing was due to a seizure as a result of an ongoing medical condition, and that condition was Epilepsy. We are still trying to navigate our way through this extremely heart wrenching time, and continue to ask for privacy so that the family, and all who knew and loved him can grieve his loss and make arrangements for his funeral–which in and of itself, is agonizing.”
Sabrina Carpenter
Before Sabrina found fame as chart topping singer with her world renowned track Espresso, she’d actually stumbled into fame as child Disney star on Girl Meets World.
However, Sabrina had always longed to be a singer and had been wanting to break the music industry from her early teens but felt as though people didn’t take her seriously because of her age and Disney roots.
Reflecting on her past with the network, she previously detailed to Variety: “People maybe wrote me off, from my past as a Disney kid. It’s not like you start doing well and everyone loves it and you’re set for life – you reach a certain place you’ve always wanted to be at and then there’s a whole new group of people that want to try to bring you down.”
Since then she’s taken the globe by storm with hot-selling album Short n’ Sweet which launched in 2024, causing her fame skyrocket to new highs.