16. Fergie
Born as Stacy Ann Ferguson in the hills of California, Fergie is a vital part of The Black Eyed Peas whose megahits like “I Gotta Feeling” and “Meet Me Halfway” have taken the music industry by storm.
Long before the Peas, however, Fergie launched her career as a child actor on Kids Incorporated when she was nine years old and later joined an all-girl band in 1992 known as Wild Orchid.
Spending a decade with the band, Fergie left the group in 2002 but took more with her than she ever imagined.
During her 2006 interview with Time magazine, Fergie admitted that her time with Wild Orchid led to her crystal meth addiction which crossed over into her early years with The Black Eyed Peas. Having since gotten clean, Fergie said, “It was the hardest boyfriend I ever had to break up with. It’s the drug that’s addicting but it’s why you start doing it in the first place that’s interesting.” As for Fergie, she said much of it had to do with being a child actor and learning to suppress her feelings at an early age.
15. Aaron Carter
“I never wanna hear your say, ‘I want it that way.’” Another teen heartthrob from the 1990s, singer Nick Carter rose to fame with the Backstreet Boys only to have his younger brother, Aaron, cash in on his growing fame when he was 10 years old.
By 2000, Aaron had already released his second album, Aaron’s Party (Come Get It), that sold three million copies in the United States alone thanks to singles like “I Want Candy” and “That’s How I Beat Shaq.”
Despite his quick rise to fame as a teen idol, Carter’s drug problems started in the mid-2000s when he was first pulled over for speeding and officers found marijuana in his car. Carter seemed to have his addiction in check in 2009 when he appeared on Dancing with the Stars but, by 2011, he admitted himself into the Betty Ford Center for one month as result of a Xanax addiction caused by stage fright from the show. In 2012, Aaron lost his sister to an overdose and has vowed to live clean ever since.
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