As any celebrity knows, just because you're on top one day, doesn't mean you'll stay there.
From sitcom stars to athletes — and even the King of Pop — these
80s stars know what it's like to lose everything.
Viewers once crowded around their television sets to catch a glimpse
of heartthrob Willie Aames as Buddy Lembeck on the 1980s show Charles in Charge. He also
starred in the 1970s sitcom Eight is Enough. In an interview with The Wrap,
Aames said that at his peak, he was cashing in $1.6 million a year.
But his standard of living would alter drastically years later when he became
homeless. Aames blamed his change of fortune on various factors: a lavish lifestyle, drug use,
and bad investments. He told CBS that the pressures of fame led to bad decisions, such as
extreme partying and drug addiction. No doubt, he had that in common with other young stars.
"I made some really stupid decisions in my life."
But his own financial manager put him in a precarious position. Aames was
convinced to invest in a coal mine, but ended up owing the IRS $400,000.
The experience made him realize how little he knew about financial management,
and ultimately led him to pursue a new career as a financial advisor.
Beginning in 1987, Jodie Sweetin played the middle child, Stephanie Tanner, on Full House.
Stephanie Tanner was known for her wit and sarcasm, along with her trademark outburst:
"How rude."
However, it was Stephanie Tanner, not Jodie Sweetin, who became a household name. As a result,
Sweetin had trouble reinventing herself in the years after the show ended. In
an interview with Complex, Sweetin said that after struggling to find new work,
she resorted to drug use. Full House ended when Sweetin was 13 years old, and a year later, she
was an alcoholic. When she was 20, she was dealing with an addiction to crystal meth. By 2008,
Sweetin announced that she was going clean and decided to get help at a rehabilitation center.
"I am who I am, and I survived, you know?"
But the damage had been done. Sweetin was short on cash and in December 2008,
UPI reported that her house had been foreclosed upon. Then, in 2016, Sweetin's fortunes changed
when Netflix picked up a reboot of Full House. Sweetin had a starring role in the new show,
called Fuller House, which depicted Stephanie's adult years with her sister, D.J. Sweetin told
Mike Tyson has long been a household name, but there was a time when he was making $30
million for a single fight. In 1986, he became the youngest heavyweight champion of the world
and developed a reputation for knocking out opponents in one round. But Tyson's career
was also littered with numerous mistakes that resulted in huge financial losses.
1988 came back to haunt Tyson when he was forced to pay $45,000 in court for a street fighting
incident. After biting Evander Holyfield's ear in 1997, he was fined $3 million. By 2002,
Tyson had lost millions in lawsuits against past promoters. He was also losing fights,
which devalued his brand as a fearsome heavyweight boxer.
Tyson filed for bankruptcy in 2003, citing more than $27 million in debt, according to
The New York Times. There were other reasons for that hulking debt, namely his lavish spending,
which included multiple houses and cars — even a Siberian tiger. But things began turning
around in 2009 after Tyson's well-received cameo in the blockbuster comedy The Hangover. Soon
after the film's release, Tyson began making appearances on TV shows and even went on to
star in his own successful Broadway show, Mike Tyson: The Undisputed Truth. With other successful
ventures in tow, including a podcast and cannabis farm, Tyson's finances are once again in order.
Kim Basinger was one of the biggest movie stars of the 1980s. Her career
began rolling when she appeared alongside Sean Connery in the 1983 James Bond film Never Say
Never Again. Basinger went on to become a respected actor in the years that followed,
with acclaimed roles in films like The Natural, Fool for Love, and Tim Burton's Batman.
However, Basinger's lucky streak came to an end in 1993 when she made the regretful
decision of verbally agreeing to star in the film Boxing Helena. The actor didn't honor her word,
and Main Line Pictures sued her for nearly $9 million as a result.
Basinger filed for bankruptcy afterward, arguing that her $5.4 million net worth
at the time wasn't enough to pay the restitution. By the late 90s, however,
the actor's financial situation started turning around after she received an Academy Award for her
role in 1997's L.A. Confidential. In the 2000s and 2010s, Basinger continued adding notable roles to
her acting resume with parts in 8 Mile, The Nice Guys, and two of the Fifty Shades of Grey sequels.
Michael Jackson needs no introduction.
After coming onto the scene as a child star with the Jackson 5, Jackson launched what would become
a legendary solo career. His Grammy Award-winning album, Off the Wall, was released in 1979. Jackson
followed it up with 1982's Thriller, which earned 12 Grammy nominations and went on to become one
of the best-selling albums of all time. Jackson's 1987 album Bad had five number 1 hits, setting a
record. At the peak of his career, Michael Jackson had sold more than 500 million albums worldwide.
And yet, at the time of his death, Jackson was in debt as much as $500 million,
as reported by The Guardian. His financial troubles began with a $22 million lawsuit
settlement paid to the parents of 13-year-old Jordan Chandler. Other
lawsuits followed — some by concert organizers and some by investors.
Jackson's financial situation grew to be so bad that he nearly had to foreclose
on his treasured estate, Neverland Ranch. Another reason for his financial decline
was Jackon's extreme spending. After his untimely death in 2009, however, the King
of Pop began to experience a major resurgence in sales. According to the New Zealand Herald,
Jackson has raked in nearly $2 billion since, averaging an impressive $360 million a year.
For years, Gary Coleman tried to escape his famous Diff'rent Strokes catchphrase.
"What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?"
Coleman came into the role in 1978 at 10 years old, and the show lasted until 1986.
Diff'rent Strokes made Coleman a wealthy kid, allowing him to cash in $70,000 an episode. Yet,
Coleman could never outgrow the role and had trouble finding new work to sustain his career.
Coleman also lost millions after Diff'rent Strokes ended. He blamed his parents, as they were his
financial managers and therefore controlled his trust fund. Instead of the $18 million Coleman was
meant to receive at the age of 18, his fortune had dwindled to $220,000. He sued his parents
but only recuperated $3.8 million. In 1999, Coleman filed for bankruptcy, citing problems
that included medical expenses. After a serious fall in 2010, Gary Coleman died at the age of 42.
Sherman Hemsley played George Jefferson on two TV shows in the 1970s and the 1980s.
While initially appearing on All in the Family, Hemsley stole the spotlight and
was largely responsible for the creation of its spinoff series, The Jeffersons.
With his clever and entertaining portrayal of an African American businessman living
in Manhattan with his family, Hemsley's show stayed on the air for a whopping 11 seasons.
But even with all his success, Hemsley filed for bankruptcy in 1999. He ended up having to
sell the rights to his sitcom residuals to two men, William Little and David Pullman, according
to The Hollywood Reporter. Little and Pullman engaged in a legal fight over breach of contract
allegations concerning the residuals — a conflict that continued well after Hemsley's death.
That's not the only strange news surrounding Hemsley's posthumous finances. According to
The Hollywood Reporter, his body had to be refrigerated more than a month after his
death when a man claiming to be his brother objected to the contents of his will. It took
four months for Hemsley to be finally laid to rest while the dispute reached a resolution.
Corey Haim is the poster child of Hollywood tragedy. After making the teen star a household
name in the 1980s, the industry did little more than chew him up and spit him out. Haim's
breakthrough role was in The Lost Boys, which began a seven-time collaboration with 80s actor
Corey Feldman. In the 90s, however, Haim's career went on the decline due to drug addiction issues.
Most of his roles during that time were in direct-to-video films. In 1997,
Haim filed for bankruptcy when he was just 26 years old. Sadly,
Haim passed away in 2010 when he was only 38. The cause of death was pneumonia and natural causes.
Feldman's posthumous tributes to Haim have shed light on the amount of adversity the actors
experienced throughout their careers. For one, Feldman has spoken at length about the sexual
abuse that he and Haim were subjected to as child actors, including in the documentary, My Truth:
The Rape of 2 Coreys. Additionally, Feldman said that in the last years of Haim's life, he had
been living in a low-income apartment and didn't have a car. According to Feldman, Haim also had
no connections in the entertainment industry, so no one was able to help him financially, either.
David Adkins, more commonly
known by his stage name Sinbad, skyrocketed to fame as a result of his recurring role on
A Different World. Sinbad portrayed Walter Oakes, a goofy dormitory director who tries to keep the
college students in order. Adkins left the show in 1991 for a promising career in stand-up comedy. He
went on to star in his first HBO special with 1991's Brain Damaged. Sinbad also became a
fixture in middling comedy features like 1996's Jingle All the Way. He was so popular at the
time that Fox gave him his own show in 1993, The Sinbad Show. However, it only lasted one season.
By 2013, Sinbad had filed for bankruptcy twice — but a lavish lifestyle wasn't to blame.
He told HuffPost that he was using his personal finances to fund his
business ventures, violating the famous Hollywood golden rule.
"My thing is, I didn't buy Bentleys. I never lived large. I believed in me,
I invested in me, and I invested in a lot of other people."
He personally threw money toward his production company until he was $11 million in debt.
Sinbad overestimated his chances to score another film role, and the debt kept piling up. However,
Sinbad's career has since rebounded. He released a new standup special in 2010 and has appeared
in numerous TV shows since the early 2000s. Unfortunately, Sinbad was hit with a major
setback after suffering a debilitating stroke in 2020, and his recovery is ongoing to this day.
Screech from Saved by the Bell was everyone's favorite geek for more than a decade. Played
by Dustin Diamond, the character was impressively smart yet hilariously
oblivious to basic social conventions. Screech was so beloved by audiences that he probably
warranted his own spinoff show. However, Dustin Diamond never got one. In fact,
after Saved by the Bell and its college-themed sequels ended, Diamond had trouble finding new
work. In an interview with his former Saved by the Bell co-star, Mario Lopez, Diamond
said all his later acting auditions failed because producers couldn't see past the Screech character.
"I'd audition and every single time they'd say,
'Hey, we loved it, but we saw too much Screech in it.'"
Sadly, Diamond wasn't able to comfort himself with his hard-earned money,
either. When Diamond was still a minor, his parents misspent his Saved by the Bell fortune,
as reported by the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal. In 2001, Diamond filed for bankruptcy. By 2006,
the former child star was forced to sell T-shirts in order to avoid foreclosure on
his home. Diamond then schemed up some unsavory ways to make money,
including a fake sex tape in which he hired a body double to play him.
Additionally, a 2009 tell-all book put him in a bad place with his former Saved
by the Bell co-stars. As a result, Diamond was never invited to the cast's reunions,
as he revealed to Lopez. He supported himself as a stand-up comedian in those years,
an occupation he held as late as 2015. Diamond died in 2021 of lung cancer. He was 44.