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“Business Insider” has a list of 20 celebrities who were once homeless . . .
. . . although it’s a LITTLE hyperbolic, because in a lot of the cases it’s just famous people’s quotes about how they were so poor they were basically living out of their car when they were young, struggling artists.
Still, they ARE essentially rags-to-riches stories . . . so here are 10 highlights:
1. When director James Cameron was writing “The Terminator”, he was, quote, “barely making ends meet, even living in his car for a time.”
2. When Halle Berry first moved to New York to become an actress at the age of 21, she ran out of money, and her mother cut her off. During this period, she stayed in a homeless shelter.
3. When Dr. Phil was 12, he was homeless and living in a car in Kansas City with his father, who was interning as a psychologist.
4. Singer Ella Fitzgerald was a homeless teenage runaway before becoming arguably the best female jazz singer of all time.
5. Jewel once lived on the streets after her boss fired her because she wouldn’t sleep with him. She ended up homeless for a year . . . and during that time she was singing in coffee shops.
6. Jennifer Lopez left home when she had an argument with her mom over becoming a dancer. She started sleeping on the sofa of her dance studio. She says, quote, “I was homeless, but I told [my mom], ‘This is what I have to do.'”
7. Harry Houdini ran away from home when he was 12 by jumping on a freight train. A few years later he moved back in with his dad, but they were so poor that Harry had to panhandle in the streets.
8. Steve Harvey lived in his car for three years in the ’80s, and he’d wash up in hotel bathrooms, gas stations, or swimming pool showers.
9. Hilary Swank lived in a car with her mother when she was a teenager, while they saved up for an apartment in Los Angeles.
10. Drew Carey was once homeless in Las Vegas. He sold plasma for $40 and looked for spare change to buy boxed mac and cheese.
(Go to BusinessInsider.com to see the whole list.)
