From Shahrukh Khan to Leonardo DiCaprio, Celebrities Who Went from Rags to Riches
Their success is proof that hard work and perseverance can make anything possible
Their success is proof that hard work and perseverance can make anything possible
1ShahrukhThe superstar did not have a god father in the industry. He was born in a middle-class family, his father a former freedom fighter ran small-time ventures in Delhi. Shah Rukh was pursuing his maters degree in mass communication at Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi but left it midway to get into Bollywood. He started off with TV and then moved on to the big screen and the rest as they say is history.
2Leonardo Di
One of the highest paid actors in Hollywood had a rough beginning. In 2014, Leonardo told the Los Angeles Times that he grew up in a seedy L.A. neighborhood that was home to open-air drug and prostitution markets. Of his success, he told the Times, “It goes back to that neighborhood. It came from the fact that I grew up very poor, and I got to see the other side of the spectrum.”
3SelenaSelena Gomez is a name to reckon with in the music industry and has a few hit TV shows and movies to her credit. But in 2011, in an interview to Hollywood Life, she revealed that her mother gave birth to her when she was just 16 years old and worked several jobs just to put food on the table.
4AkshayThe superstar didn’t have it easy initially. He dropped out of college and went to Thailand to learn martial arts, where he worked as a chef. He initially struggled for a break but since then has become one of the biggest stars in Bollywood.
5Sarah JessicaSarah Jessica Parker, wasn’t as lucky as her character Carrie Bradshaw in “Sex and the City”, no designer brands to flaunt or a walk-in closet full of clothes. She grew up poor and in a 2000 interview with the New York Times she spoke about how difficult life was growing up on welfare and receiving free lunch at school and basic utilities being turned off in her family’s home. “I remember being poor,” Parker told the Times. “There was no great way to hide it. We didn’t have electricity sometimes. We didn’t have Christmases sometimes, or we didn’t have birthdays sometimes, or the bill collectors came, or the phone company would call and said, ‘We’re shutting your phones off.'”
6MilaMila Kunis was born in Ukraine and her familyfled to America as the Soviet Union collapsed. In a 2016 interview with the Daily Mail, she recounted eating “ketchup soup” as a kid when food was scarce. And in a 2012 interview with Metro UK, she said that she “acted her way out of poverty,” starting with a starring role on “That ’70s Show”, alongside Ashton Kutcher, her now husband.
7NickiThe rapper was uprooted from Trinidad at the age of 5 to a poor neighborhood in Queens, New York, when her family moved to the US. She spoke about her past in a December 2010 interview with Rolling Stone, saying, "When I first came to America, I would ... pray that God would make me rich so that I could take care of my mother."
8Jim
The comedian-turned-actor who has given us many memorable films was homeless at the age of 12 after his father lost his job. As per a Time report, he lived in a van then.
9Demi
Demi Moore, the two-time Golden Globe nominee, didn’t have an easy childhood. Her father abandoned her and mother before she was born, and the man who became her stepfather was frequently out of work. This forced the family to move frequently, according to Hello! Magazine.
10Nawazuddin
Nawazuddin has an inspiring story that’s good enough to be made into a movie. From working as a watchman to now being a well-known actor, he has come a long way. In an interview with DNA, Nawaz shared that he hailed from a family of farmers based out of a village in district Muzaffarnagar of Uttar Pradesh. He has six brothers and two sisters and though it wasn’t easy for them to get proper education, he still managed to study. It was much later that while working odd jobs in Delhi, he took interest in theatre. He joined a theatre group in Delhi and to sustain himself worked the nights as a watchman. He moved to Mumbai to try get into Bollywood after working in Delhi for four years before finally moving to Mumbai in 2000.”
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