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Her breakout came early. After making her film debut at five in Altered States, she became a global sensation just two years later in Steven Spielberg’s E.T.. Fame arrived overnight — and with it, pressures no child should ever face.
“I don’t think I understood what was good, or pleasurable, or bad. I was probably chasing joy, but I don’t think it was the real joy. I was just too young to know,” she later reflected.
A Home Without Stability
Behind the bright lights, her family life was deeply unstable. Addiction ran through generations, and her father struggled with alcoholism while remaining largely absent from her life. Her mother’s behavior was unpredictable, and after her parents divorced when she was nine, she was thrust into adult environments far too young.