People reveal what these stars were like before the spotlight.
He Was Hilarious
“Tupac. I was in French class with him in either 10th or 11th grade. I was pretty lousy at French, and I don’t remember him paying too much attention to the subject either. Then again, I remember little of those days since it was over 20 years ago. I can vouch for his having been really funny though – he had the whole class totally losing it on more than one occasion.”
I Always Knew
“Didn’t go to high school but did ballet and horse back riding with Kate Upton before she moved to Florida. We kept in touch through letters. I lost touch with her right after she was named rookie of the year for Sports Illustrated because she just got way to busy. Total sweetheart though, always knew she was gonna be famous be it through her looks or her horses.”
“He Was An Attention-Seeking Jerk”
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“I went to high school with Taylor Lautner. Kid was an attention-seeking jerk. He once wore a dog suit backwards to school with the tail hanging at his crotch. However, I also know someone who once pushed him into a fountain at the mall. Taylor and my friend Sean used to be friends, but when Taylor started getting a big head because he was about to be in Twilight, they were having a verbal argument at the mall. Things escalated and Sean shoved him and he tripped into the fountain.”
She Made Everyone Feel Welcome
“I went to high school with Taylor Swift. I had a few classes with her but honestly didn’t know her really well. She played in the school talent show freshman year before she got popular and did that Tim McGraw song. I remember, when she did make it, CMT would come to the school all the time to film her and her friends. She was actually really nice to people and made everyone feel welcome. I also had Driver’s Ed with her. She is very witty and smart. I was coming back from a mission trip to Mexico and saw her in the Texas airport so I went up to her and said, ‘Hi, Taylor!’ Because we have the same name, she said, ‘Hi, Taylor!’ back. We talked for a bit and when I returned to my team, everyone’s mouth was open and they were shocked that I knew her. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal but it was really funny.”
“He Criticized My…”
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“I went to the Hill School ’94-95 while Donald Trump Jr. was there. He was a big-headed and judgmental jerk who ran with a posse of sycophants of his choosing and who also always paid his way. The dude never seemed to pay his own way. He also bagged his share of girls from the all-girl schools who would get bussed in for our dances. The dude was well aware of the power of his family name. The one negative encounter that comes to mind each time I see his smug face on TV is when that jerk criticized my choice in hats. You see, I fancied myself a skate punk in the early to late ’90s. I had decided to get a straw golf hat and safety pin it up all Australian-like on one side and festoon it with a band made from a cut up school tie. Anyways, he see’s me rollin’, he hatin’. He yells out, ‘Hey, that’s not a skater hat!’ Ridiculous reason for a grudge, sure, but screw that guy anyway.”
She Plays The Game
“My partner was in the same grade/school as Margot Robbie. It’s very weird to see how popular she is and think of how few degrees of separation there once were. His sister also did musicals with her. Apparently, she was known for being pretty and somewhat popular, but not one of the super popular people that everyone went crazy for during school productions (in some of the productions people would cheer when the well-known charismatic people appeared on stage). There are these backstory rumors that say she was so into Harry Potter she wore glasses to look like him, but both my partner and sister are like, ‘No that’s not true.’ So I think she has these origin stories that are trying to make her seem more relatable to nerdier/geekier fans of hers (seeing as a lot of her well-known characters were from geek pop-culture for lack of a better word), but it’s all just promo stuff to make her seem more relatable. Personally, the impression I get is she’s determined, focused, strong and hard working – and she kind of plays the game to get where she needs to be.”
Played It Cool
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“I went to high school with LeBron James. In high school, he was pretty humble and down to earth, even when he (and the rest of the school) knew he was going to be an NBA superstar, he kept his class and played it cool through graduation. His ego didn’t blow up until after high school.”
Behind The Scenes
“I went to Laguna Beach High School while MTV was filming ‘Laguna Beach’ (which we all thought was going to be ‘True Life, The Real OC’ but didn’t quite work out that way). Anyway, I was a few grades below all those kids on the show. It’s funny that Lauren Conrad was cast as the nice girl, because she was one of the biggest jerks of them all. She was always super, super popular, though. She’s been able to make a nice little career for herself off of being America’s Sweetheart. Kristin Cav (Cultler, now?) was okay, but slept around a lot. She and her friends in 8th grade called themselves ‘the six pack girls’ which meant they would do anything for a 6 pack to drink. I’ve personally witnessed her doing illegal substances and making out with girls at parties for attention. Most people on that show were always popular and had an ‘I’m better than you’ attitude about them. Everyone at the high school thought the show was low quality and lame, and ruined our community.”
Troublemaker
“Katie Holmes went to my Catholic all-girls high school. Apparently, she was nasty and a trouble maker, and whenever we asked any of our teachers about her, most of them said, ‘I’m sorry, but we’re not allowed to talk about her.’ Also, it’s rumored that she hated our school so much because of the nuns who disciplined her that she donated a large sum to our rival school out of spite. My drama teacher said she was terrible at acting.”
We Were Roommates
“I was roommates with Emily Ratajkowski for a 5-week art program. It was in San Francisco, I was 17 and she was 16, we shared a bunk bed and dorm room. She was nice, a great artist, kind of valley girl-ish, but pretty down to earth actually, very pretty girl. She actually had kind of a tough time making friends within the program, like she wasn’t interested in doing so. She had a skate rat boyfriend from back home who came to San Francisco during the program, so she kind of just did her own thing with him all the time. We had a conversation once where she said she couldn’t really decide whether she wanted to pursue modeling or art. She was doing some modeling in those days, I think for Forever 21 or something, but her dad is an art teacher so she grew up making art. Anyway, guess she chose to model. Totally weird now that she’s a big model and icon. I see her face all over ads and stuff, and I was barely a blip on her radar.”
“I Don’t Understand Why She…”
“Demi Lovato was in the grade below me in middle school, and then moved to Hollywood just before high school. She was a real jerk and a half. Definitely the biggest mean girl of her grade. I don’t really understand why she goes into interviews saying she was bullied so badly; it was her doing all the terrorizing.”
He Was So Passionate
“Well, he was really passionate about wanting to make movies. He acted in the play, he loved strong, almost exaggerated characters and representations. He was very much about iconic, dramatic portrayals. He acted like he was already headed to being a famous, successful director. He was into Culture Club, despite being a very straight guy. I ran into him again in LA, where he was still studying and trying to get into the business. We went shooting at a range, and played paintball. His passion for cinema hadn’t really dulled, but I could tell he was a little frustrated by how difficult it can be to ‘get in’ to the industry. Then he made 300. I didn’t even realize it was his until after I hit the IMDB page, looking up other stuff about the film after seeing it on satellite at a friend’s place, about a year after it was in the theater. I about fell off my chair. Nice to see he finally made it. So that was what it was like to know Zack Snyder back when he was in high school.”
Just Like The Movies
“Went to Junior High School with Robert Downey Jr. He was very, very much like many of the characters that he often plays in movies – always trying to make the quick joke. Sometimes I can’t separate his character (especially in his early movies) from the kid I knew in JHS because that is exactly the way he acted back then. We were also in a drama class together one year and the teacher used to constantly make a joke where he basically wondered aloud why Downey was here in the class, adding that his father (a writer and filmmaker) was going to get him a bunch of jobs through his connections. Also, one time he got the wind kicked out of him by another kid for dating a girl that the other kid liked. Also went to school with Diane Lane (who no one liked) and Jon Cryer who was a really nice kid.”
Always An Opinion
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“Halsey is horrible. She was horrible in school. She’s horrible now. Constantly trying to be the center of attention, had to be right no matter what, got a great teacher fired because she didn’t like that he would ignore her, stole a sweatshirt, I could go on. So the main thing was that she was very much a face and opinion, no real substance as a person. Continually would rant and rave about things the didn’t matter. The best way I can describe it is that she was Tumblr personified. Obviously not all bad, but the majority of the time I wish she would just shut up. So many unsubstantiated accusations and claims of being oppressed. She at one point told a kid that was cutting to ‘just do it’ in regard to them killing themselves. I am just one person so maybe she was only mean to me and people I know but the majority of the people that I saw interact with her just wanted her to shut her face. Relatively unrelated in the sense of personal experience, but she at one point was in an interview that she said she was ‘bullied’ and her dad left when she was young. To the best of my knowledge, her dad is a local cop and if I was to assign anything to her it would be ‘bully’ not ‘bullied.’ She also repeatedly said she didn’t understand how anyone in the school felt bullied because everyone gets along. She was always the girl crying wolf and usually instigated everything.”
The Most Popular Girl In School
“One of the stars of Agents of Shield, Chloe Bennet, went to school with me. She, of course, changed her name once she got famous (was born Chloé Wang). In person, she was gorgeous and became the most popular girl in the school since day 1 freshman year. She was actually very nice and I never saw her be mean to anybody. I hung out with her in a group of friends after school a few times and it was quite pleasant. She did have a lot of friends who were older sketchy dealers that didn’t go to our school but always hung around the property. I sat behind her in Geometry and let’s just say brains were not her strong suit. After our sophomore year, she left school and became a Chinese pop star for a hot second (funded by her rich father) and now she’s part of the Marvel universe.”
Workaholic
“My aunt dated and lived with Jon Stewart for a few years before he was famous (while he was well known in NYC for performing in comedy clubs). They’re still close friends. I met him and he’s pretty awesome. She said that he is a total workaholic, more than anyone realizes. Like, sleeps in his office type of workaholic. Also, he reads every book that he discusses on his show IN FULL. So he spends several hours per day reading. He got us VIP tickets to see both his show and Colbert a number of times and I was surprised that they each film their shows in pretty much one take.”
“It’s Become A Custom To…”
“I’ve known Brandon McCartney (Lil B, the rapper) for a long time. He and I shared a really good mutual friend and we became friends pretty quickly. From about 10-14 we hung out daily. He’s a really nice dude and super goofy. I have some pretty funny stories about that guy. One day, when we were like 13, after staying the night at his house his mom refused to let us leave the house until we each had at least a liter of water and had to eat this huge bag of grapes. At least a pound. We were full from captain crunch and we couldn’t stop laughing at how ridiculous the situation was. It took us like 45 minutes to eat all the grapes. We felt disgusting. I don’t see him much anymore, but it’s become a custom of mine to tease him about his nickname. I’ll ask him to pass me something, like the salt, and I’ll say, ‘Thank you based god.’ He’s a good sport about it. About a year ago when he was presenting at the MTV Woodie Awards, I randomly decided to text him, not knowing what was going on or that he was at an awards show. We’re talking and he doesn’t bother mentioning it. I turn on the TV and I see he’s presenting an award to Matt and Kim who went nuts on stage. I asked him why he didn’t mention that he was at the awards and all he said was ‘I’m stressing out bro, I’m surrounded by all these crazy white people.'”
Poster Child
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“Miranda Kerr. Typical popular pretty girl who tried hard and had everyone fawn over her. Basically the perfect poster child and good girl who did whatever she was asked. I mean that with no disrespect intended. Her parents, on the other hand, are attention seekers and I have no respect for them. They moved the family across the country for her ‘career’ when she was still quite young, without much care-factor for her childhood, even less care-factor for her younger brother who has struggled a lot in life living in her shadow. She was doing magazine shoots at 14 and being heavily made up and posed in skimpy outfits. There was quite a bit of uproar locally with people asking the question of whether it was borderline inappropriate because she was just SO young but they were making her up to be so much older, because she was so tall and skinny with such big eyes and lips. It seemed they were sexualizing a girl who wasn’t even in the area of the legal age of consent, and it always seemed off that a parent would allow that. Anyway, the parents basically made it all about her and they pinned everything on her gaining success at whatever cost. The parents were quite controlling, and only gave the brother half glances in life. I believe Miranda tried to distance herself from them for a while, and not long ago they were doing interviews to the media saying they hadn’t seen her in years and she wouldn’t speak to them and didn’t know why. Again, manipulative attention seeking trash, I have nothing good to say about her parents, at all.”
This One Time At Band Camp
“According to legend, my mom’s friends strung Rob Schneider’s underwear up a flag pole at their band camp when he was a Freshman. I brought it up with him a few years back when he was visiting town and he jokingly scolded me for ‘bringing up that painful memory.’ In high school he was supposedly a dorky, goofy, kind of annoying but lovable kid. From my own experiences more recently, he’s silly and loves to make jokes and everything but mostly he’s just laid back and very kind. He funded our town’s band program and tries to come home for concerts and to stop by and say hello once in a while. He’s a real genuine good guy.”
Conceited Country Stars
“I attended the same high school as Miranda Lambert. My now girlfriend played drums for one of her early local performances and said she was really conceited and didn’t take well to people complimenting her (my girlfriend) and the other non singing performers. On a separate thought, my girlfriend went to high school with Kacey Musgraves at a nearby high school. My girlfriend’s sister use to have sleepovers and such with their friend group. She said that Kacey would always use her friends as a way to prop herself up. i.e. making jokes and comments at their expense.”
“I Wasn’t Surprised At All When…”
“I went to college with Matt Ryan. He is getting a lot of national attention as one of the top NFL MVP candidates. I had a few classes with him. He was an INCREDIBLY nice guy. He was also very intelligent. I wasn’t surprised at all when he had one of the top scores (if not the top) in his draft class on the Wonderlic test. My first class with him was before he won the starting job at Boston College and my last class with him was after he started getting recognized as a potential NFL-level player. He didn’t change at all. He was always super approachable and kind. I was definitely not at his level in terms of social circles (science dork) yet he still knew my name and would say hi to me unprompted if we crossed paths around campus. He spoke fondly of his parents and was pretty funny too. I have loved watching him become a star in the NFL; so many successful athletes are complete turds and he couldn’t be more deserving of success and adoration. I have been saying for years that he has that kind of potential, so Go Eagles!”
My Little Buddy
“Rebecca Black was my ‘little buddy’ when she was in kindergarten and I was in 4th grade. Honestly, she was adorable and very well-spoken and polite for a 5 year old. And I remember for the two other years I went to that elementary school, we still bumped into each other every now and then – she spent most of her time in the library reading, keeping herself only to a small group of friends. And now we’ve been friends on Facebook for the past two years or so, even before Friday debuted.”
Class Clown
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“In middle school (6th grade), I sat across from Tyler the Creator for one semester, but he was in my class all year long. He was always making stupid jokes (and of course inappropriate jokes here and there.) He broke my pen and said I could just go buy another one. He was always chatty, talking about his favorite hip-hop artists, (The Neptunes and N.E.R.D I believe.) Towards the last few days of school, our teacher brought a camcorder to record the class, and he wanted to do a rap battle with another classmate sitting in our group. The entire class roared with laughter and I wish I could remember why, but the opponent sat down afterward. I didn’t know he was Tyler the Creator until a few years ago. Crazy that he’s famous now, and his humor is still intact.”
Beyond Bubbly
“Debby Ryan. We didn’t go to the same high school but we went to the same church youth group. She was nice, very bubbly (borderline obnoxious), and was involved in a lot of church productions. Major drama geek. She even played Mary for Christmas one year. I actually remember overhearing her afterward telling someone how she felt she had played the part so well it brought people to tears and she found it touching or something. I thought it was hilarious. Her brother played guitar in the youth group band and all the girls were crazy over Chris. Chris is his real name and I don’t understand why he changed it to Chad Chase. Ryan isn’t their real last name, either, but I can at least understand why they’d change that. But yeah, he was hot stuff and one of my friends almost dated him but he was notoriously hard to get. The first time I watched Hot Fuzz was at her house. This was when my friend and Chris were almost dating, so I got to tag along.
I remember when she auditioned for Disney. She wouldn’t stop bragging about it. Our church was in Keller, TX and I wanna say her mom took her to Dallas for it? I remember thinking there was no way she’d land a part for Disney. That’d be like winning the lottery, it just doesn’t happen to people you know. But then low and behold, she landed a Disney gig. I never thought she’d actually get famous, but then a few years later, she was. I’m actually pretty proud of how true to her values she seems to have stayed, honestly.”
“He’s Still Not…”
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“I went to high school with Tyler Joseph, lead singer of Twenty One Pilots. In school, he was an amazing basketball player; he and his brother Zack were known state-wide. He comes from a great family. To be honest, as charismatic as he is, Tyler was relatively quiet back in those days. Then, once his rise to fame happened, he seemed to just be a liiiiittle more arrogant, but hey, corruption is a mean disease, and he’s still not a bad guy.”
She Did It Just To Be Nice
“Amy Poehler is from my home town, although about 10 years older than me. She was just getting famous from SNL when I was in high school. Her mom taught at my school, but I never had her. She was really well liked though. Amy came back and did some cameos in the Senior Class video a couple years after I graduated, and all those kids said she was awesome and super nice. She totally didn’t have to come star in a small town high school senior comedy sketch video, but she did, and that is awesome!”
He Hasn’t Changed
“I went to school with Eddie Robertson (of Barenaked Ladies). He was a VERY smart and VERY funny guy, and was friendly with everyone he knew. He was part of the ‘gifted’ program at Woburn Collegiate in Scarborough (a year ahead of me). He was one of the few ‘nerds’ (back in the 1980s when it wasn’t a positive term) that was actually popular with all of the cliques in the school. He and Steven Page performed together (proto-Barenaked Ladies) at the school talent show at least once. I’m pretty sure that’s where I first heard ‘McDonald’s Girl.’ He and another student used to be in charge of the music/announcements on the PA before classes started in the morning, and they were very funny. He was just funny and nice and talented and outgoing teenager who became a funny and nice and talented and outgoing adult.”
He Always Wanted Attention
“Went to school with Brandon Stanton, the Humans of New York guy. He absolutely loved being popular. Everything he did was essentially to get and maintain attention. Fairly smart, somewhat funny, a reasonably functioning substance taker, and always really loud. After high school, he bounced around for a while. Always talked about writing a book or producing a documentary or something. Essentially, they were all just different plans for projects that would make him famous. Anyway, he eventually moved to NY and started taking pictures of people, and it took off. It’s a great site, and he probably does more good than most, but it never would have happened if he didn’t love attention and praise.”
“So Real”
“I went to high school and was good friends with Ray Fisher, who plays cyborg in the justice league movies. We hung out a lot our senior year and several years through college. He played a lot of pranks on our statistics teacher. All that enthusiasm he has in interviews and stuff is so real. He’s a great guy, really down to earth, and worked incredibly hard to get where he is. I haven’t seen him since he got the role, but his best friends from high school are still some of his best friends and he hangs out with them all the time.”
“So Talented and Sincere”
“I went to high school with Eric Paslay (country music singer). He was a really quiet kid. He had a fun streak and was honestly one of the best musicians at our school. He was good friends with my boyfriend and so I wound up at his house a couple of times after gigs (he was in a local band and my boyfriend and I helped him after gigs by playing ‘roadie’ and helping unload equipment). He and I weren’t best friends, but our circles crossed a lot. I was a genuine fan of his music and made it out to all of the gigs too. His mom was super nice and all I can say is I am so glad someone so talented and sincere has found a bit of fame in Nashville. He also used to sing like Dave Matthews, and I still own his first CDs from his local band.”