Lindsey

Bhad Bhabie made $1,030,703 on OnlyFans in her first six hours, six days after she turned 18. Before that, she says, her mother ran her money and she had a $500 limit on her card. At 14 she had paid off her mother's mortgage with a $65,000 check.

Her mother says the girl was the one stealing credit cards.

In the video below, she tells Emily Ratajkowski: "My mom was in control of my money. So she was doing whatever she wanted to do."

She was 13 when her mother took her on Dr. Phil in September 2016. In January 2019 a makeup company signed her to a six-month deal worth $900,000.

When she opened OnlyFans in April 2021, she told her manager all she needed was $3 million put away and $100,000 a month. "Here's your $3 million that you wanted in four hours," she says.

On the same podcast she says she was sexually abused as a child twice, from 3 to 6 and from 13 to 16. In 2025 she said the first was her mother's boyfriend.

Asked how her mother feels about OnlyFans: "That lady love money. She don't give a f*** where it come from." Asked if she still supports her: "Damn."

In July 2025 American Express sued her for $674,452.40. She denied it and went after her mother on Instagram: "I bought you a million dollar house, you have 2 Benz's, one Bentley. You still on payroll."

The case for Barbara: "Dani was stealing my credit cards, and her friends were making big purchases," she told Dazed in 2018, with her daughter sitting next to her.

So did Barbara Bregoli hold a teenager's money until she could handle it, or spend a child star's money while the child lived on a $500 limit?

exploring the money behind famous names on camera

Tonya Harding's mother paid for her skating lessons out of her waitress tips, starting at $25 a week. Tonya says the lessons came with a hairbrush, some weeks six days out of seven. In 1994, her mother let CBS hide a microphone on her to record her own daughter.

Her mother says she spanked her once, at a competition.

In the video below, 15-year-old Tonya calls her mom from a hotel room. Half a minute later, on the same film, her mother says: "If there's no you-can't-do-it type thing, she won't do it. She'd be nothing."

That was 1986, her first nationals, filmed by a Yale student as a senior thesis. A minute later Tonya says it herself: "She's not a good mother. She hits me and she beats me."

In 2018 ABC asked what set off the hairbrush. "Oh, I wasn't landing my jumps perfect. I mean, I probably did 20 of them." How often: "I don't think that there was more than one day a week sometimes that I didn't get beaten."

A woman who saw it says she was ready to call child protective services. She was told it would ruin Tonya's skating career.

During the 1994 Olympic training, CBS gave her mother the hidden microphone. CBS said it never paid her. In 1995 Tonya told CBS: "My mother doesn't do anything without being paid." CBS pulled her segment.

When Hollywood made I, Tonya, Allison Janney won an Oscar for playing her mother. Tonya sold the rights to her life story for $1,500 up front.

The case for LaVona: "I was working right around the clock, morning, noon and night, trying to get the money for her to skate and to have lessons," she told ABC. "I didn't abuse any of my children."

So did LaVona Golden work around the clock to build a champion, or raise one with a hairbrush and then wear a hidden microphone on her for CBS?

La Toya Jackson was 32 when she posed for Playboy, and her manager Jack Gordon was supposed to get 10% of what she earned. In 1991 she posed again. She later said he made her do it twice. In 1994, sitting right next to him on Howard Stern's show, she said he takes whatever he wants. A year later she filed for bankruptcy, claiming less than $50,000 to her name. When she finally left him, she said she couldn't even cash a check.

In the video below, she's asked Jack's percentage while he sits right next to her. She says 10%. Then she tells the room what he actually takes.

"He's supposed to get 10%."

"But since we've been together as a couple he takes whatever he wants."

"I told him we can always remain manager and artist. I just want a divorce."

Gordon had worked with her father. When her parents couldn't go to Japan with her, they sent him. In 2008 she told Dutch TV what happened when they landed.

"The minute we got there, he took my passport. And he says, you're never going back."

The security watching her, she says, was paid with her money.

"They have the security that they hired with your money, of course."

He became her manager, then her husband. Years later, about Playboy:

"He made me do Playboy twice."

In 1995 she filed for bankruptcy, claiming less than $50,000 to her name against $500,000 to $1 million in bills. Gordon, her husband and agent, blamed the owners of the Moulin Rouge in Paris.

In 1996 she left. "He controlled all my bank accounts," she told PEOPLE. "I couldn't cash a check."

His answer: "Latoya is a liar, an absolute liar."

That year they both phoned Howard Stern's show.

Her: "It's wrong for a man to beat a woman and make her work. It's like a pimp."

Him: "She had a butcher knife in her hand. I hit her once, she went down."

Her: "I was his meal ticket. He doesn't want to see his meal ticket leave him for the rest of his life."

10% on paper.
Less than $50,000 left.

So did Jack Gordon run her career, or did he run her?

Tatum O'Neal was 10 when she won an Oscar and thanked her director and her father. Afterward, as Ryan O'Neal tells it, she said she'd buy a horse ranch with her $60,000 from Paper Moon. His answer: "$6,000. Not $60,000." Then: "Sell the Academy Award." Her next movie paid her $350,000 plus 8% of the net profits. By 20, she says, she was addicted to cocaine. When he died in 2023, she wasn't in his will.

In the video below, 10-year-old Tatum thanks her father at the Oscars. Seconds later, Ryan tells how he answered her $60,000 plan: "Sell the Academy Award."

"I've decided what I'm gonna do with my $60,000 from Paper Moon."
"I think a horse ranch."
"$6,000. Not $60,000."
"Please, I won the Academy Award."
"Sell the Academy Award. You might make some money."

That next movie was The Bad News Bears, and CBS later called her the highest-paid child actor in Hollywood.

In her 2004 memoir she wrote: "I remained Ryan's companion on the Hollywood party circuit, growing inured to sex and drugs before I was in my teens."

She told The Hollywood Reporter: "He loved me, but then hated me, because I won the Academy Award."

His answer to the book: "As a father, it is my hope that this book was written to serve as her therapy."

After the cocaine came heroin, and John McEnroe got custody of their three kids.

In 2011 they sat in a therapist's office for their TV show.

Her: "I'm a woman that's turned to heavy drugs to get rid of her feelings."

Him: "She holds me responsible for many things that didn't go well for her."

When the therapist asked if he bore some responsibility: "Absolutely, sure. But what can I do? It's over."

In 2008 she was arrested in New York in an alleged crack buy. In 2020 an overdose led to a stroke and a coma.

He died in December 2023. Her son's words about the will: "It's blood money."

Her, after the coma: "I've had a hard, hard, hard, hard, hard life."

Oscar at 10.
Out of his will at 60.

So did Ryan O'Neal make his daughter a star, or cost her a childhood?

Philip Seymour Hoffman left a fortune reported at $35 million to his partner, not his three kids. His accountant said he "did not want his children to be considered 'trust fund' kids." Years earlier, on camera, he explained what fame and money at 19 would have done to him: "I'd be dead."

In the video below, he tells 60 Minutes what he was on at 22. Then his son talks about growing up with that Oscar in the house.

"Drugs or alcohol or both?"
"All that stuff. Anything I can get my hands on."

"I was 22 and I got panicked for my life."

"I didn't have any money at the time."

"I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden they're beautiful and famous and rich. I'm like, oh my God, I'd be dead."

That was 60 Minutes in 2006, just before he won the Oscar for Capote.

He signed his will on October 7, 2004, when his son Cooper was his only child. Two daughters, born in 2006 and 2008, were never added.

The estate went to Mimi O'Donnell, the mother of all three. They never married.

In a 2014 court filing, his accountant said Hoffman turned down setting money aside for the kids, and that his wishes still hadn't changed a year before he died. Because they were not married, estate lawyers told CNBC the tax could run from about $12 million to close to $15 million.

He stayed sober for about two decades. Then he started using again.

On February 2, 2014, he was found dead in his Manhattan apartment. A drug overdose. He was 46.

Mimi, writing in Vogue four years later:

"For the first time I realized that his addiction was bigger than either of us."

"How do I tell my kids that their dad just died? What are the words?"

Cooper was 10. Today he is an actor himself. On TODAY last year:

"We have an Oscar at the house... you don't want to step into something and not do it as well as that person did."

"He was nice. He was a good guy."

Sober at 22.
Dead at 46.

Was keeping the money from his kids the smartest thing he did as a father, or a mistake that handed millions to the IRS?