THE RULES: CHILD STARS

Child stars have a story. Discovery, difficult phase, drugs, breakdown, comeback. We've been eating that story for decades and it tastes great. This episode is about what that story was designed to obscure: a system that isolates children, sidelines the people protecting them, and turns their pain into someone else's revenue.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

Coreyography - Corey Feldman (2013). Feldman's memoir, the first major public account of systemic abuse of child actors in Hollywood.

My Truth: The Rape of Two Coreys - Corey Feldman, dir. (2020). Documentary in which Feldman names his abusers on the record.

An Open Secret - Amy Berg, dir. (2014). Documentary following former child actors who came forward about abuse in the California film industry.

Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV - Investigation Discovery (2024). Five-part documentary on the culture of abuse on Nickelodeon sets from the 1990s to 2000s. Drake Bell names himself publicly for the first time.

The Woman in Me - Britney Spears (2023). Spears's memoir, covering the conservatorship and the conditions that preceded it.

Framing Britney Spears - Samantha Stark, dir. (2021). New York Times documentary on the conservatorship and the media's role in constructing the breakdown narrative.

The Wizard of Oz - Victor Fleming, dir. (1939). Judy Garland, 16 years old at time of filming.

THE COMPANION PIECES

Non-fiction: The Clock Was Always Running - therulespodcast.substack.com/p/the-clock-was-always-running

Fiction: Bloody Virgin - therulespodcast.substack.com/p/bloody-virgin

Director's Cut: The Real Rules of Child Stars - available from 15 May 2026 - therulespodcast.substack.com/

The Rules is an independent podcast from Pegasus Podcasts. New episodes drop weekly. If you liked this one, the best thing you can do is tell someone.