For a little while, it looked as if maybe former child actors had shed the stigma, long understandably held, that Hollywood success at a young age would lead to tragedy later in life. Child stars from the 1970s and 1980s seemed particularly mistreated and/or self-destructive, whether born into dysfunctional Hollywood families, like Tatum O’Neal, or the result of more sui generis success, like Brad Renfro, River Phoenix, or Corey Haim. But as these cases became more notorious, they seemed to act as cautionary tales for a generation of stars that seemed – broadly speaking – to be receiving better guidance, whether from family, friends, or themselves.

Look at the astonishingly well-adjusted core cast of Harry Potter kids, who worked for a full decade, from their pre-teen years to young adulthood: among Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, there are more awards, charity work and seemingly happy relationships than genuine scandals. (The biggest malfeasance of anyone in the trio? Some mild tax problems for Grint.) Other awards-show fixtures like Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, and Kieran Culkin have come out the other side of child stardom with terrific careers and strong reputations closer to the Jodie Foster model. Even Lindsay Lohan, whose behavior in the 2000s and into the 2010s seemed to signal impending tragedy, seems to be doing well: sober, happily married, and back on the big screen last year with the hit sequel Freakier Friday. In terms of more recent young stars, a pop singer like Olivia Rodrigo appears to have much more autonomy than Britney Spears did, even in her early-2000s heyday.

But the past few years have also served as a reminder that plenty of young performers are still mistreated by a system that often seems brazenly unequipped to handle some of its most vulnerable participants. The latest such reminder is the tragic death of Hayden Panettiere, a multi-talented actor and singer, at just 36. Last year, Michelle Trachtenberg, Panettiere’s co-star in the family film Ice Princess, also died, at 39, from diabetes complications following a recent liver transplant (paying tribute, her Harriet the Spy co-star Rosie O’Donnell said: “She struggled the last few years … I wish I could have helped.”) Earlier in 2026, Daveigh Chase, another actor who got her big break through the Disney machine, died far too young, with complications from Aids and, secondarily, substance abuse, with both cited as causes (her boyfriend wrote that she had “faced more than her share of hardship”).

The precise circumstances of these deaths aren’t always known right away or at all; Panettiere went into cardiac arrest, which can indicate an overdose given her young age, but no foul play is suspected. Often health problems and addiction issues blur together, whether from current habits or those long-broken with extended after-effects. Regardless of the specifics, however, the common ground of childhood stardom is troubling. Panettiere even left behind a recent firsthand account of her struggles; her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning was published earlier this year. In it, she recalls feeling pushed into work (and pushing through illness or injury) by a since-estranged stage mother; being encouraged to take drugs to better cope with the pressures of fame, leading to later treatment for addiction; experiencing sexual harassment from Hollywood types and domestic abuse from one of her partners; and suffering through postpartum depression, among other problems.

Plenty of people go through similar ordeals with less attention, and without a celebrity’s monetary resources, of course. But it’s striking, as it has been with past cases, just how little protection those resources seem able to buy, whether through the combination of family members literally taking the money while failing to protect their children, or simply the vastness of a system that demands a lot while offering little in the way of hardbound rules – apart from those that the young performers, not their various caretakers or abusers, are expected to follow, or else. Panettiere recalled being dropped from her Neutrogena spokesperson role after she discussed her postpartum depression: opening up about her struggles was considered a violation of the common “morality clause” that allows corporations to dictate associated celebrities’ public behavior.

Some have raised the issue of whether allowing the use of child performers at all is especially ethical, given how many child-labor workarounds are involved, and how many tragedies have been left in their wake. In some ways, the existence of so many successful and well-adjusted former child stars helps keep that pipeline stable; it’s hard to picture Hollywood agreeing to shut down, or even dramatically curtail, the process that has supplied some of this era’s few stars with genuine mystique, whether it’s the superstar aura of Zendaya or the indie ethos of Kristen Stewart.

Chillingly, it’s the family-friendly Disney company that appears on so many résumés of those who struggle during and after their childhood success. Perhaps more than any other major entertainment conglomerate, it’s one that needs child voice actors, Disney Channel stars (even if there aren’t as many youth-market sitcoms as there once were, TV movies like the Descendants series are still big business), and the occasional child co-stars for Star Wars or Marvel projects (Star Wars alone has featured child co-leads in nearly half of its live-action series). And there are obviously plenty of kids and/or parents who would love to be a part of any of them, given the company’s multi-generational hold on so many imaginations. A similar brand recognition likely allowed Nickelodeon, the beloved kids’ cable channel, to get away with employing Dan Schneider, a TV showrunner whose widespread harm was chronicled in the docuseries Quiet on Set – alongside multiple other Nickelodeon staffers who were actually convicted of sexual abuse charges.

Indeed, the irresistibility of stardom must be part of the problem, at Disney and elsewhere. Panettiere clearly felt nudged into acting by a mother she cut ties with at 19, yet, based on her work as her career went on, she probably also felt some degree of creative spark. She must have known that her work in the Scream movies (where her character Kirby was so beloved that she was brought back from a presumed death) and shows like Nashville and Heroes made a lot of people happy. She was, by most reasonable standards, quite good at a job that can nonetheless take its toll over the years.

If successes like Portman or Bale can accidentally help perpetuate harmful show-business practices, maybe Panetteire’s story – which at least she was able to tell on her terms with her recent book – can serve as a reminder that while child performers might face better odds now than they did 30 or 40 years ago, introducing a child into this world can still be akin to baptizing them with fire (and sometimes yelling at them for not knowing how to douse the flames). This also raises the question of whether next-gen child performers in the form of YouTubers and influencers, jobs that now seem as aspirational to many young people as acting or singing once did, will be better-suited to avoid these tragedies, or if they’re just rediscover new paths back toward the same old pitfalls. After all, whether it’s acting or singing or YouTubing, these jobs still manage to look fun. Even when traditional role-playing isn’t involved, the entertainment world is dangerously good at perpetuating illusions.