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Parents Just Don’t Understand: Celebrity Emancipated Minors

May 22, 2013

Celebrity Emancipated MinorsRecently, actor Will Smith told the British newspaper The Sun that his 14-year-old son Jaden, star of movies like The Karate Kid and the upcoming Will Smith movie After Earth, was looking into joining the ranks of other celebrity emancipated minors. It’s usually used to declare minors legal adults to either help teenagers escape abusive homes, protect financial assets or, as we’re guessing is the case with Smith, be able to work long hours on movie sets without violating child labor laws. The elder Smith seems cool with this. After all, he’s a guy who used to win Grammys for complaining about his parents.

Here are some other celebrity emancipated minors:

Tiffany. The ‘80s pop star best known for touring malls and covering “I Think We’re Alone Now” butted heads with her mother, Janie Williams, over control of her career during the height of her fame. In 1988, Tiffany even snuck away from home to pursue legal emancipation. Her efforts failed, so she moved in with her grandmother while her earnings were placed in a trust fund her mother couldn’t touch.

Michael Jackson. The King of Pop couldn’t stand his notoriously abusive father, Joe Jackson, and their incredibly mixed-up relationship probably helped fuel much of his bizarre behavior. During an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 1993, Michael confessed that his infamous plastic surgeries were inspired by Joe’s nasty comments about his “fat nose.” Jackson successfully won emancipation as a teenager.

Macaulay Culkin. One of the world’s most successful child actors had to put up with one of the most overbearing stage parents in the history of showbiz. While Mac was starring in movies like Home Alone, his dad worked as his manager and earned a nasty reputation around Hollywood for his boozing. After enduring his parents’ vicious custody battle (which was also a custody battle for their son’s earnings) in the mid-‘90s, Mac took both of them to court, and he successfully gained control of his earnings and cut off all contact with his father.

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