Now aged 35, Elijah Wood - who starred as Frodo in The Lord Of The Rings - became a child actor at the age of 8.
And he has spoken out about claims that powerful figures in Hollywood have been sheltering child abusers and paedophiles.
Comparing the situation to that of Jimmy Savile in the UK, Elijah told The Sunday Times: “You all grew up with Savile – Jesus, it must have been devastating.
“Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood.
“It was all organised.
“There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind.
“There is a darkness in the underbelly – if you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.”
Elijah was thankfully, unlike many other child actors, shielded from the abuse by his mother, Debra.
“She was far more concerned with raising me to be a good human than facilitating my career,” he said.
He added: ”What upsets me about these situations is that the victims can't speak as loudly as the people in power.
“That's the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people: they can be squashed, but their lives have been irreparably damaged."
Elijah is just one of many voices that have spoken out against the alleged Hollywood paedophile ring.
Corey Feldman, who starred in Gremlins, The Goonies and Stand By Me back in the 1980s, recently alleged that he was “surrounded” by abusers by the time he was 14-years-old.
"The number one problem in Hollywood was and is — and always will be — paedophilia. When I was 14 and 15, things were happening to me. These older men were leching around like vultures.
“It was basically me lying there pretending I was asleep and them going about their business," he said.
Corey also spoke about his best friend and fellow child star Corey Haim, explaining: "An adult male had convinced Corey that it was perfectly normal for older men and younger boys in the business to have sexual relations.
“So they walked off to a secluded area between two trailers and Haim allowed himself to be sodomised."
Both Corey Feldman and Corey Haim went on to suffer mental health problems, alcoholism and drug addiction, which Feldman suggested was a direct result of the abuse they had been subjected to.
Corey Haim tragically passed away in 2010.
Anne Henry, co-founder of the BizParentz Foundation, an organisation established to protect child actors, has said that Hollywood is currently sheltering 100 active abusers.
She said: “We estimate that about 75 per cent of the child actors who ‘went off the rails’ suffered earlier abuse. Drug addiction, alcoholism, suicide attempts, wandering through life without a purpose — they can all be symptoms.”
Anne added that a “tsunami” of claims are beginning to be made against some of Hollywood’s leading figures.
And Elijah, when asked if he believes the abuse is continuing even now, said firmly: “I’ve been led down dark paths to realise that these things probably still are happening.
“If you’re innocent, you have very little knowledge of the world and you want to succeed, people with parasitic interests will see you as their prey.”
Read the full report in The Sunday Times now.