26 Celebs With Dark Pasts
![26 Celebs With Dark Pasts](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/3/4/728134.jpg?v=2)
Celebrities seem to lead perfect lives. They have the big three Fs: fame, fortune, and free burritos at Chipotle. It's pretty easy to look up to them with admiration and envy, wishing you were them.
But sometimes, tinsel covers up misery. Even the biggest-deal celebs have skeletons in their huge walk-in closets -- they've done horrible things, or had horrible things happen to them. We've put together a list of people with bright lives, but a dark past.
We all know about Drew Barrymore partying WAY too soon and the Billy Joel thing just makes us shed a tear for the piano man. What we couldn’t believe was the HOSTAGE situation that Samuel L. Jackson was involved in with Martin Luther King Jr.’s FATHER. It’s a strange world, and apparently it only gets stranger (and darker?) at the top.
Keep scrolling for more can’t-look-away-schadenfreude-fuel that will make you go: hmm? Am I a bad person?
![When Dylan McDermott from American Horror Story was five, his mom was shot dead by her gangster boyfriend, John Sponza. McDermott sought justice for y](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/3/9/725239.jpg?v=2)
![Drew Barrymore took very young to the party lifestyle. She was drinking at nine years old, smoking pot at 10, and snorting cocaine at 12. By 13, she h](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/3/5/725235.jpg?v=2)
![Billy Joel wrote his song Tomorrow is Today based on his suicide note. Joel tried to take his own life in 1970, when his affair with his drummer's w](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/5/7/725257.jpg?v=2)
![Leighton Meester, who you've seen in Gossip Girl, was born in jail. Her mom was doing time for drug smuggling. CRACKED COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/5/6/725256.jpg?v=2)
![Matthew Broderick collided with a Volvo in 1987, killing two women. He claims he doesn't remember that day, or why he was driving in the wrong lane. H](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/5/3/725253.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDC COM Samuel L. Jackson led a protest in college that escalated badly. Police had to intervene when protesters took several faculty members hos](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/5/2/725252.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDCON Pamela Anderson has revealed that she was molested by a female babysitter when she was six, raped at age 12, and gang- raped by her boyfrie](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/5/1/725251.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKED.CON When Jackie Coogan was 19, long before he became Uncle Fester, a close friend of his was murdered. Coogan was part of a mob that lynched t](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/5/0/725250.jpg?v=2)
![Tyler Perry has described his childhood as a living hell. He was often beaten by his father, and several adults abused him sexually. CRACKED COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/4/9/725249.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDcO Ludwig van Beethoven had a harsh childhood. His alcoholic father wanted Ludwig to become the next Mozart, and would force him to practice al](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/4/8/725248.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDCON Charlie Chaplin married actress Lita Grey after he knocked her up and she refused to have an abortion. He was 35 and she was 16.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/4/7/725247.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDG COM Oprah Winfrey was beaten up regularly during her childhood. Sexually abused since age nine, at 14 she gave birth to a child, who died two](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/4/6/725246.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDo COMT Abraham Lincoln lost his mother when he was nine, and his father left to find a new wife. Abe and his 11-year-old sister had to fend for](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/4/5/725245.jpg?v=2)
![Albert Einstein gave his first wife a list of stipulations that he expected her to follow. Essentially, she was to be his maid and expect nothing in r](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/4/4/725244.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDo COM Zach Braff, also known as J.D. from Scrubs, beat up a kid in 2005. Several teens sprayed fake paint on his Porsche as a prank for Punk'd.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/4/3/725243.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKED COM Robert Downey Jr. got his first hit of weed from his own father when he was six years old. He's been addicted to drugs since age eight.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/4/2/725242.jpg?v=2)
![Keanu Reeves' life is full of tragedy. His father left when he was three, and his best friend River Phoenix died from a drug overdose. His girlfriend](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/4/1/725241.jpg?v=2)
![Tom Baker, of Doctor Who fame, had a very strained relationship with his wife's family to the point of attempting to murder his mother-in-law with gar](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/4/0/725240.jpg?v=2)
![Charles S. Dutton, the sage groundskeeper who helps inspire Rudy in Rudy, went to prison for manslaughter at 17. It wouldn't be his last conviction.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/3/8/725238.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDCON Peter Yarrow (center) is the Peter of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary. He's also a convicted sex offender. He went to prison in the '70](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/3/7/725237.jpg?v=2)
![Don King was convicted of manslaughter in 1967 for stomping an employee to death over an unpaid debt. CRACKED COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/3/6/725236.jpg?v=2)
![Kiefer Sutherland has done a few short jail stints for driving under the influence. He also got in trouble for headbutting a fashion designer in 2009.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/3/4/725234.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDCON Chuck Berry had a considerable rap sheet. He was in jail for robbery and illegally transporting a year- old girl across state lines. In 199](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/3/2/725232.jpg?v=2)
![Madonna was raped shortly after moving to New York City. A man said she could use his telephone- only to assault her at knifepoint once she was in his](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/5/4/725254.jpg?v=2)
![Coco Chanel didn't just revolutionize fashion she was also a Nazi spy. Declassified documents identify her as a secret agent working for the Germans,](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/3/3/725233.jpg?v=2)
![Joaquin Phoenix spent his early childhood in a sex cult called the Children of God. When the family left the group in 1978, they changed their last na](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/2/5/5/725255.jpg?v=2)