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Disney Channel Stars Who’ve Fallen From Grace

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Disney Channel built its brand on squeaky-clean images — and then watched several of them crack in public.

The Mouse House spent two decades cultivating a stable of teen stars who were supposed to embody wholesome, family-friendly entertainment. But fame that starts before puberty tends to curdle in ways executives never plan for, and several of the network’s biggest names have spent their adult years dealing with the fallout — legal trouble, addiction, on-set reputations that don’t match the merchandise. Nicki Swift’s rundown revisits four of the most talked-about cases.

• Cast and crew on Shake It Up reportedly labeled Bella Thorne difficult to work with, a reputation that stands in sharp contrast to co-star Zendaya’s smoother rise.
• Demi Lovato, who broke out on Camp Rock and Sonny with a Chance, was hospitalized in July 2018 following an overdose, the latest chapter in a long-public struggle with substance abuse and eating disorders.
• Lalaine, who played Miranda Sanchez on Lizzie McGuire, pleaded guilty to felony methamphetamine possession after a July 2007 arrest and was ordered into court-mandated drug rehabilitation.

Bella Thorne’s On-Set Reputation

Bella Thorne’s run on Shake It Up made her a Disney Channel name in her own right, but the show’s cast and crew reportedly didn’t remember her fondly behind the scenes. Multiple accounts painted her as a diva on set — the kind of on-set friction that rarely shows up in press junkets but tends to follow a young actor’s reputation for years.

The comparison that keeps coming up is her former co-star Zendaya, whose career trajectory since Shake It Up has been markedly smoother, both in terms of public perception and industry relationships. It’s the same split that shows up across plenty of former co-stars whose paths diverge once the cameras stop rolling — the kind of dynamic Nicki Swift has also tracked in pieces like Reality Stars Who Treat Their Co-Stars Like Trash.

Demi Lovato’s Public Battle with Addiction

No name on this list carries more public history than Demi Lovato. Since her Camp Rock and Sonny with a Chance days, Lovato has been open — sometimes painfully so — about her struggles with substance abuse and eating disorders, documenting parts of her recovery in interviews and her own projects over the years.

That history turned into a crisis in July 2018, when Lovato was hospitalized following an overdose. The news dominated entertainment coverage for weeks and reignited scrutiny of just how much pressure former child stars carry into adulthood, long after the Disney Channel logo stops appearing on their credits.

Lalaine’s Disappearance After a 2007 Arrest

Lalaine was a familiar face to any ’00s Disney Channel viewer as Miranda Sanchez, Hilary Duff’s on-screen best friend in Lizzie McGuire. Her career trajectory changed abruptly in July 2007, when she was arrested and later pleaded guilty to felony possession of methamphetamine. A court ordered her into a drug rehabilitation program.

Eleven years after that guilty plea, Lalaine still hasn’t landed back in a series-regular role.

Where former castmates went on to build lasting careers, Lalaine largely vanished from mainstream Hollywood, a disappearance that’s become its own footnote in Disney Channel history.

Raven-Symoné’s Rocky Run on The View

Raven-Symoné had been in front of cameras since infancy by the time That’s So Raven made her a Disney Channel headliner, and reports have long suggested that a lifetime in the spotlight left her with an inflated sense of her own standing. Friction reportedly followed her onto other sets, and it resurfaced publicly during her stint as a co-host on ABC’s The View, where her remarks repeatedly generated backlash and controversy.

The seat she occupied has since become something of a lightning rod in its own right — a dynamic explored further in Why The Republican Co-Host Seat On The View Is Cursed.

Lovato, for her part, has continued treatment and stayed out of the public eye since the July hospitalization — the next real update on her recovery is the one everyone in her fanbase is waiting on.