25 ‘Non-Nepo’ Celebrities Who Grew Up In Poverty And Made It On Their Own

The Jolene singer has described her family as being “dirt poor.”

Dolly grew up in a house with no electricity or running water in Pittman Center, Tennessee. Her parents, Avie Lee Caroline and Robert Lee Paterson, had twelve children, and Dolly was the fourth.

Her parents paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal. In 1972, Dolly wrote Dr. Robert F. Thomas, a song dedicated to him and other rural healthcare professionals.

“I’m proud of my hillbilly, white trash background,” Dolly told Southern Living. “To me, that keeps you humble. That keeps you good. And it doesn’t matter how hard you try to outrun it — if that’s who you are, that’s who you are.”

Born into a working-class family in the Canadian province of Quebec, Céline is the youngest of 14 siblings.

Growing up, the superstar shared a bed with three or four of her sisters and wore their hand-me-downs.

As a baby, she slept in a drawer. “My mum was brilliant enough to put a pillow in a drawer for a baby to sleep in. We were safe and warm and taken care of. Three or four of us in the same bed was normal to us. We weren’t poor, but we never had money, ” the Queen of Power Ballads told Vanity Fair.

“We were given love and affection and support. What else did we need?”

Selena’s mother, Mandy, had her at sixteen years old. The Only Murders in the Building star recalls having to search for quarters to pay for gas during her childhood.

“I remember my mom would run out of gas all of the time and we’d sit there and have to go through the car and get quarters and help her get gas,” the 32-year-old told Hollywood Life.

“I remember having a lot of macaroni and cheese but my mom never made it seem like it was a big deal. She was really strong around me.

“Having me at 16 had to have been a big responsibility. My mom gave up everything for me, had three jobs, supported me and sacrificed her life for me.”

Misha’s family was sometimes homeless and lived off food stamps, he revealed to Forbes when asked about the inspiration behind his non-profit organization Random Acts in 2018.

“I still remember vividly what a profound impact a relatively small act of kindness from a stranger had on our family during those times,” the Supernatural actor said.

“I still relish the meal we bought with a $14 gift certificate to Abdow’s Big Boy that a stranger handed to my mom when our car had broken down, as we were hitchhiking in the winter. That act of generosity has stuck with me for decades, and I feel as if I’m still trying to pay it forward.”

Born in South Carolina to Mae Alice Logan, a maid, and Dan Davis, a horse trainer, Viola is the second youngest of six children.

At nine years old, the actress moved with her family to Central Falls, Rhode Island. “We were on the periphery. And we lived in abject poverty and dysfunction, which is a horrific combination. And feeling like you are the only one being black, being on the periphery, belief system becomes almost imperative,” Viola said of her Catholic upbringing.

“I grew up in apartments that were condemned and rat-infested, and I just always sort of wanted to be somebody,” the Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award winner told Harper’s Bazaar.

“The people I knew sat around drinking and cursing and living in denial. These were my role models. Life was about surviving—getting money any way you could,” the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul told Oprah Winfrey in 2006.

Mary was born in the Bronx, New York City, to a nurse, Cora, and a jazz musician, Thomas. After her father— a Vietnam War veteran who suffered from alcoholism and severe PTSD—left the family in the 1970s, the singer and her mother subsided on Cora’s earnings as a nurse.

When she was five, the Seven Pounds actress moved into a reclaimed building in New York City after her family was approved for an affordable housing plan.

The abandoned apartment, which she shared with her then-22-year-old mother and 2-year-old brother, had no electricity or running water.

“We had cast-iron stoves, plastic for windows, and plywood for a door. You had to bring buckets upstairs to shower,” Rosario told The Columbus Dispatch.

“It was quite an experience being so poor. But it was also a powerful experience. It made me the woman I am today and informs my activism.”

The Texas-born singer’s family lived “prepay check to prepay check,” she told the Dallas Morning News in 2015.

“I always used to hate when people would be like, ‘Money doesn’t buy everything,’ when you are little and poor. Rich people say that. Not poor people. I don’t know one poor person that’s going, ‘Money doesn’t buy happiness.’ It pays you to get out of eviction notices,” said Kelly, who rose to fame after winning the first season of American Idol in 2002.

In 1989, when Halle moved from Ohio to New York to pursue an acting career, she worked as a waitress and bartender. Before that, she briefly lived in a homeless shelter and then a YMCA after running out of money in the Big Apple.

Her financial situation improved later that year when she was cast as Emily Franklin in the ABC sitcom Living Dolls, a spin-off of Who’s the Boss?

Jim and his brother John worked as janitors and security guards at a tire factory in Ontario, Canada, in exchange for living in the house across the street with their family.

Prior to that, the Carreys lived in a van and at campsites around the Canadian province when the family became homeless.

Speaking on The Howard Stern Show in 2003, the actor and comedian said he was put in a position where he “tried to be the adult and take care of everything.”

When he worked as a janitor at age fifteen, he would often release his anger by punching a wall. “Every day, my father would come to relieve me from my eight-hour shift and there would be a new hole in the wall in the office shaped like my fist.”

The Ontario-born star grew up poor and would often go to school with an empty stomach. “It’s very hard to concentrate when your stomach’s rumbling,” Shania told ABC News in 2011.

Though the country musician was jealous of other children’s lunches, she never asked anyone for help.

“I would certainly never have humiliated myself enough to reach out and ask for help and say, ‘You know, I’m hungry. Can I have that apple that you’re not going to eat?’ I didn’t have the courage to do that.”

The Miss Sloane star often went to bed hungry during her childhood.

“I did grow up with a single mother who worked very hard to put food on our table,” Jessica told The Irish Times.

“We did not have money. There were many nights when we had to go to sleep without eating. It was a very difficult upbringing. Things weren’t easy for me growing up.”

Her harsh childhood experiences shaped her attitude and made her more empathetic. “Because of my mother, I do always try to think about how something must be for someone else. I’m not so interested in myself. I’m interested in other people.”

To pursue acting, the Oscar winner worked at a performing arts school in exchange for taking classes since “there was no way my family could afford it,” she told People Magazine.

Growing up, the Gossip Girl alum appeared on commercials for Bloomingdale’s, Stern’s, and Limited Too.

“I worked a lot, even though I was just a kid. It seemed normal to me,” Leighton revealed during a 2012 interview for Marie Claire.

When she moved from New York to Los Angeles at age 14, she and her mother survived on modest checks from the actress’s grandfather and fees from her modeling gigs.

“I couldn’t relate to kid stuff. ‘Jimmy doesn’t like me!’ Who cares? I was worried we didn’t have gas money or food. Those were my concerns.”

The iconic talk show host spent her early years living in rural poverty with her grandmother in a house without running water.

Oprah was bullied at school and given the derogatory name “Sack Girl” for wearing overalls made with potato sacks.

After being sent to live with her mother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Oprah was raped by her cousin at age nine. She ran away from home four years later after suffering years of sexual abuse by her cousin and other family members.