rant · moment 11 of 24
Child Actors and Hollywood Abuse Documentaries
from The Mushroom Pilot & Jailed Billionaires | The Tim Dillon Show #407 · #407
4 min
Tim connects the ice cream stand story back to his own childhood, then riffs on the wave of Netflix documentaries exposing abuse of child stars (Alf, NSYNC, Nickelodeon) and jokes that his own parents were too inept to exploit him.
- Tim describes a kid ratted out for running an unlicensed ice cream operation to help his brother's disabled hockey team.
- His parents never pushed him to earn money through lemonade stands or odd jobs.
- Tim's parents' strategy was getting him cast in movies instead, which would have paid better than a lemonade stand.
- Every Netflix documentary now—from *Quiet on Set* to the *NSync* doc—exposes child abuse in Hollywood.
- Parents in the '90s had the advantage of not knowing how widespread abuse was; now they can't claim ignorance.
- Tim jokes that maybe modern kids are more confident and won't get exploited, perhaps because they're brash about not being victimized.
- Every show gets a documentary revealing its star abused cast members—he lists *Alf*, *Leaving Neverland*, *Quiet on Set*, *The Corey Haim thing*.
- Tim notes his parents were so incompetent at exploiting him as a child actor that they didn't even try to capitalize on his looks.
- If he'd been sexually abused by Hollywood directors instead, he'd own a beach house now despite the psychological damage and political radicalization.
- The absurdity: child abuse could have made him wealthy compared to his actual broke situation.
Amanda Byneschild actors