These Reality Show Kids Grew Up in the Public Eye — & They’re Finally Revealing How it Shaped Their Childhoods

Growing up during the reality TV boom, seeing real people live their lives has always been fascinating. Now as a mom, I still enjoy watching current and old-school shows surrounding parenting. These are great to get tips or feel better about my own parenting style (hi, Super Nanny!), live vicariously through their fabulous lives (aka, The Kardashians), or even satisfy our curiosity about what different family styles are like (most people don’t have 19 Kids and Counting.) But, while it’s cool for us to watch, it wasn’t always a great experience for the kids highlighted on the various shows.

Five former reality show stars, who are all grown up now, just revealed what it was really like to be constantly filmed in a new interview with Teen Vogue. As young adults now, they reflect on having their real lives on display for public consumption (often with no protections, privacy, or financial gain) and how their unique childhood shaped them. And it is eye-opening!

Hannah Gosselin of Jon & Kate Plus 8 is part of a family made up of a set of sextuplets and a set of twins. She was first featured on the show when she was 15 months old, and she recalled how she didn’t realize other kids didn’t grow up with film crews following their every move until she and her siblings began attending elementary school!

“That was our normal,” she told the outlet. “You’re always surrounded. The film crew was there 24/7.”

Gosselin says she worried that other kids only wanted to be her friend to get on TV and that she wished the cameras weren’t there during stressful mornings before school. Still, she says that she and her siblings became “closer to each other” through filming, “even though it made my parents further from each other.” Gosselin added, “It’s hard to go back and watch my parents argue.”

Her and her siblings’ experiences even paved the way for a change in child labor laws, per Teen Vogue, which resulted in legal and financial protections for child actors and reality stars.

Although Gosselin was paid, Gwendlyn Brown of TLC’s Sister Wives was not. “The network only paid the parents,” she told Teen Vogue. “I’m not sure if they did or didn’t expect the parents to pay us kids, but we weren’t paid.” Later, Brown recalled that her mom decided to pay her kids “a certain amount per day or half-day of camera time.”

The Sister Wives star was 8 when her family started filming the TLC show, featuring her then-polygamist dad Kody Brown with his four wives (including her mom Christine Brown) and their combined 18 children.

“I was super into it as a kid,” Brown, now 23, told the outlet, adding that she would tell everyone at school that she was on TV. One obvious part she liked? That her family went from what she called “a poverty situation” to having fame and money.

“I stopped wanting and needing things,” she said. “Life is a lot easier for a kid that’s not going hungry. It was quite a blessing initially.”

She shared that as she grew up, she started feeling angry about the lack of privacy. Now, she feels differently about growing up in the public eye. “I’m growing a bigger dislike for it,” Brown said. “And [in the past] it was like, ‘this is my normal.’ But now it’s like, ‘this does not have to be my normal,’ and it’s weird.”

Other people interviewed in this cover story include Aniko, now 20, and Aspen Bollok, now 19, who are the daughters of 90 Day Fiancé and Darcey and Stacey star Darcey Silva. They were 10 and 12 when their mom first appeared on reality TV.

“Over time, it felt weird. When you’re younger like that, you don’t imagine yourself in your life on TV and with cameras in your face,” Aspen told Teen Vogue. “You have no clue what’s going on. You don’t know if you can be yourself or what you should say. It’s definitely weird.”

Noelle Robinson, 25, started filming Real Housewives of Atlanta at 8 years old, and it made her more vigilant. “There are repercussions of being on television,” she told Teen Vogue. “I think it did make me a lot more closed off and not as trusting. People like to be around celebrity. There’s just so many things you have to be vigilant for.”

However, she was proud about being able to come out as sexually-fluid on the show. “To show that positive representation on a big network like that, I think is very, very positive,” Robinson says.

Another Real Housewives kid — Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Brooks Marks — said he was “unprepared” for life on reality TV at age 19, when his mom Meredith Marks joined the show.

“I thought I had the thickest skin ever. Then it got ripped apart by thousands of people online and [I had] to build even thicker skin,” he told Teen Vogue.

Although he liked the boost in sales his clothing brand received from the show, Brooks still felt a lot of anxiety from the experience. “I just would dissociate from everything in terms of what was causing my anxiety,” he said. “I was having breakdowns every so often, and I just felt extremely overwhelmed.”

Many other child stars have shared their experience growing up on camera throughout the years, from Nickelodeon’s Drake Bell to Disney’s Christy Carlson Romano among others. It definitely has its perks (being famous! Making money before you’re old enough to drive!), but it often comes with stress, trauma, mental health issues, and even abuse. It’s amazing for these child stars to share their personal experiences and spread awareness about being on TV to help protect future kids, whether they are on scripted shows, reality TV, or even social media.  

These are some of the reality-TV alumnae we love to follow as they tackle motherhood.