In 1987, Matthew Broderick was driving in Northern Ireland in the wrong lane when he crashed into a Volvo carrying a mother and her daughter. Mother and daughter were both killed. Matthew says ‘I don’t remember the day, I don’t even remember getting up in the morning.’ He was charged with careless driving and fined.

15-year-old Charlize Theron witnessed her mother shoot her father dead. Her father was an alcoholic and had threatened to kill her mother, Gerda, so the courts ruled the shooting as self-defence. Charlize went on to win an Academy Award.

Mark Wahlberg’s dark past will be shocking to most. After becoming a cocaine addict at 14, he dropped out of high school and joined a local gang. Mark resorted to robbing and selling drugs to get by. He was jailed for 45 days after attacking two Vietnamese men, leaving one blind in one eye. He was charged with attempted murder but pleaded guilty to assault.

Leighton might be Queen of the upper-east side nowadays but her beginnings were far more humble. Her parents were members of a drug ring and her mother was jailed for smuggling marijuana from Jamaica. Leighton was born while her mother was still serving time and she spent the first 3 months of her life living in a half-way house.

House of Cards star Kevin Spacey has a dark past that he prefers to keep secret for obvious reasons. Kevin’s brother, Randall Fowler, revealed that their father sexually abused and beat him. He also claims he was a member of the American Nazi Party and dressed like Hitler. Randall revealed that he considered suicide but chose not to so as to protect his younger brother.

Toby’s father, Vincent, inherited his sister’s children after she passed away from cancer. With three children to care for on a modest wage, Toby’s father decided to rob a bank. He was caught and served two years in prison. Toby lived with his mother and went on to fight bank robbers as Spiderman. Ironic!

I might be a case of art imitating life when you hear about this Hollywood star’s secret past. As a student in 1969, Samuel and friends held hostage members of the Morehouse College Board of Trustees demanding for changes to the curriculum. Samuel was a man of action from an early age!

He’s known for playing some of Hollywood’s most famous parts but his childhood could have been taken out of a Hollywood movie script. Christian’s mother worked for a circus as a clown and a dancer. The actor spent most of his childhood travelling around Europe and lived in over 15 different cities.

Nicole may have grown up in a life of privilege as Lionel Richie’s daughter, but her life could have been very different. Nicole’s birth mother was a backstage assistant to Lionel Richie and her biological father is a former member of Lionel’s band. Lionel and his wife took Nicole in when her biological parents were unable to provide for her due to financial reasons. The Richies formally adopted her when she was 9 years old. She went on to find fame as Paris Hilton’s BFF.

It’s hard to believe that this action star once worked as a male prostitute. He spent some time in Sicily after dropping out of school, and he funded his travels by selling his body. ‘At 20, I lived in Sicily by selling the only asset I had - my body. An older woman traded food and housing in return for sex. I woke mornings not really loving myself.’

Before Channing achieved heart throb status he was already making pulses race… as a stripper! Art really did imitate life when he started working for his local strip club in Florida. He worked under than name ‘Chan Crawford.’ His experiences influenced the production of one of his most successful films, Magic Mike.

This country star’s songs tell us that she is no stranger to heartbreak, but before she achieved superstardom she survived her parent’s abusive relationship and their deaths in a car crash in 1987. Shania was left to raise her 6 siblings at the age of 21 and waited until they were grown up before she conquered the country music world.

Before this actor was walking red carpets, he and his siblings spent some of their childhood living in controversial cult, Children of God. Upon leaving the cult, the family changed their name to Phoenix to represent rebirth and the children earned money for food as street performers. The youngsters were eventually spotted and Joaquin started working as an actor. He went on to win an Oscar for his role in Walk the Line.

This Hollywood heavy weight has a past that resembles a plot in movie. His mother, June, gave birth to him but her parents- Jack’s grandparents- chose to raise him as their own son. They took the secret to their grave and it was not until a journalist stumbled across the truth that Jack found out the truth about his family.