Cole Sprouse began acting when he was 6 months old and has been in the public eye ever since. While his roles came with some hefty paychecks, Sprouse also gave up a lot. Now, Sprouse is saying that he “pretty much lost everything” he made from his early roles because of his mom.
Cole Sprouse’s early career
Cole Sprouse entered the world of acting alongside his identical twin brother, Dylan. The two shared almost all of their roles.
According to IMDb, the actor, with his brother, portrayed Patrick Kelly on the television series Grace Under Fire from 1993 to 1998. Soon after that, they appeared on the big screen with Adam Sandler in the hit movie Big Daddy.
Fans will definitely recognize Sprouse as Ben Geller, the son of Ross and his ex-wife Carol on Friends, another role that was shared with his twin. They also had a part in the movie The Astronaut’s Wife.
In 2003, Sprouse and his brother shared the part of Jeremiah in The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. Before long, Sprouse — along with his twin, of course — had a starring role in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, a Disney Channel sitcom that made them household names.
Cole Sprouse ‘pretty much lost everything’ he made from his early roles
There’s no denying that Sprouse did a lot of work as a child, and we can only imagine that he accumulated quite a bit of wealth. According to Daily Mail, he claims he was forced into acting by his mom as a way for her to satisfy her own need for validation.
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The actor claims that his mother wanted to profit from his talents after she divorced his father, Matthew, before he and his brother turned 1. According to Sprouse himself, “My mother was, and still is, the tortured artist type. She struggled with, in many different ways, her place in the world.”
Sprouse also has said that his mother lost custody of him and his brother after court officials granted their father sole custody when she was deemed unfit to care for children. Sadly, the actor says his mom “frittered away their childhood earnings.”
In a podcast, Sprouse opened up. “When my father was given forced custody, we had pretty much lost everything from the [earliest] parts of our career.”
Sprouse’s childhood as a star
It’s safe to say that Sprouse doesn’t look back on child stardom with any degree of nostalgia. According to The New York Times, the star says that fame is a kind of “trauma” and that being famous definitely has downfalls. He feels that child actors tend to “go off the rails” in their teenage years and that the cause is never really acknowledged.
What did Sprouse say of this? He stated, “Every single person going through that trauma has a unique experience. When we talk about child stars going nuts, what we’re not actually talking about is how fame is a trauma.”
In addition, the actor said the “psychological effects” that fame has on children are the same on older people.” But he claimed that “people have an easier time hiding it when they’re older.”
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