8 Former Childhood Actors Who Are Rich Beyond Their Wildest Dreams

Making it as a child actor is next to impossible. Having very little life experience, you need charisma, the innate ability to act convincingly, and the emotional maturity to deal with fame and success. While most child actors burnout or simply decide they’d rather live a normal life once they reach adulthood, others have maintained a solid career and are now worth tens of millions. Here are 8 such success stories.

1. Elijah Wood

Net worth: $30 million

From the moment Wood made a brief cameo in Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl” video at the age of 7, everybody was thinking, “He will be a Hobbit someday.” And everybody was so right! Although he’s best known for playing Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he has more than a 100 movies under his belt during his 30-year acting career, and plenty of money as a result.

2. Frankie Muniz

Net worth: $40 million

Here’s a useful tip: if you want to retire from acting at the age of 19, just land the titular role in a TV sitcom and hire an agent who’s good at negotiating contracts. After 7 seasons of Malcolm in the Middle, Muniz was set for life. This gave him the opportunity to expand his horizons and dabble in competitive auto racing. Unfortunately, in 2017 he got into an accident on the race track, breaking his back in the process. But he went on to perform on Dancing in the Stars shortly thereafter and even finished in 3rd place, which means he clearly has the healing abilities of Wolverine.

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3. Brooke Shields

Net worth: $40 million

Although Shields isn’t a huge megastar these days, when she was a pretty big deal in her teenage years, commanding $300,000 for 1980’s Blue Lagoon, which is nearly $1 million in today’s money, and $500,000 per role thereafter. She was married to tennis star Andre Agassi for a while, and delivered a eulogy at Michael Jackson’s funeral where she insisted they had a close friendship, notwithstanding the fact that it had been almost 20 years since she had last seen him.

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