Hollywood Kids

I just finished watching a 20/20 episode on, you guessed it, Hollywood kids and their parents. What a ridiculous bunch of over-indulged, spoiled, self-centered twits. And then there's the kids.

What horror stories. Hear about Nick and Aaron Carter? Nick is one of the former Backstreet Boys, the group that, for reasons that escape me, sold bunches of records in the nineties. (I'm sure the reasons escape me because I'm not a fifteen year old girl.) Then there's Aaron, his brother, who his manager/mother forced down the public's throat as another teen heartthrob. And guess what? The public bought it, and Aaron's selling records and making videos.

But, lo and behold, with Aaron making $40,000 to $50,000 per show, and money flowing in, problems develop in the family. Aaron wants his money; mom is spending it; dad's not getting enough, so the parents split, and then dad hooks up with a younger woman, mom has a fit, is arrested, and --- well, you get the picture.

Aaron's complaint is that he just wants his mom to be a mom. (Insert your favorite "hurt-puppy-dog-look" here.) But all she wanted to do was rip off his money, not let him smoke pot with his friends, stop him from drinking and partying when he wanted to (he's 17 years old, by the by), and overall, mom just was being a general stick in the mud. I dunno. Sounds kinda mom-like to me.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Mom's no angel. She's apparently got two tractor trailers full of her own clothes, she tried to buy her kids' affections with expensive gifts -- like Mercedes SUVs -- and, wonder of wonders, there's lots of money supposedly missing.

Of course, what no one addresses is that Aaron has a 5 million dollar trust fund that he gets his hands on when he turns 18. I don't know about you, but if he's got 5 mill in a trust fund, I'm thinking Mom couldn't have taken all that much, and must have been doing something right along the way.

The thing is, this kid is so going to be yesterday's news, and sooner, rather than later. The little girls aren't going to find him so cute for very much longer, and it's not like he can actually sing. He's a commodity that his mom did a great job packaging. It just aggravates me that spoiled brats like him can look the proverbial gift horse so squarely in the mouth.

The other one in this show that really ticked me off was Jamie Foxworthy. Yeah, I never heard of her before either, but it turns out that she was one of the kids on that old ABC show Family Matters. (Yeah, the Urckle one.) Child of a single mom, landed a couple commercials when she was five and then, lucky break of all lucky breaks, at 9, she lands the role of the youngest daughter on Family Matters. Now, we're talking network sitcom here. Obviously, she's not pulling down Friends money, but she's certainly making a decent amount every week for each episode. And this show actually stayed on the air for 9 seasons. Nice gig, right? 9 years of regular paychecks, and, with wise money management, you could be set for life.

Only --- that's not what happened to little Jamie. No, her mom gets the bright idea in Season Two that Family Matters should do some shows focusing on the youngest daughter. Yeah. That was going to happen -- when pigs fly. (And that's actually what the producers told her.) So, after two season, Jamie leaves the show. Brilliant.

After that, the money dried up for their lavish lifestyle (there words, not mine), and things got tough. Imagine that. They didn't invest, or save, or live within their means. They spent the money as soon as the got it, and when it stopped coming in, things got tight. Wow. You mean, when you voluntarily walk out on a steady pay check on a TV sitcom (that's bound to go into syndication), you don't automatically get another high paying gig?

What is wrong with these people? Someone lays the golden goose on your door step, and you get a craving for foie gras?

Wait, that's not the best part. When Jamie turns 18, she discovers that there's money to be made in porn. She did a few shots, and the handed her $6,000. Wow, says she, easy money. And she went out and started spending, like it was water (again, her words, no mine). And then she made another movie, and another.

Of course, on the broadcast, they show her the headline from the Star (or was it the Enquirer) that read "From Pigtails to Porn Star," and she breaks down in tears because the experience was so horrible. Yeah. I'm sure she was crying her eyes out as she pissed through thousands and thousands of dollars. Oh, don't get me wrong. I've got nothing against porn -- I've got lots against a person who takes money from porn and then cries about it, like someone held a gun to her head and made her take her clothes off, kiss a girl, and have sex on camera.

Oh, there are some horror stories, to be sure. Corey Feldman, Leanne Rimes. But for every sad story about a Hollywood child taken advantage of by a parent living vicariously through them, there are just as many stories of obnoxious, spoiled, ungrateful, and downright dopey kids with a sense of entitlement who believe that the world should cater to their every need. It just makes me so tired listening to them whine and complain.