Celebrities who used to be homeless

Jennifer Lopez
Long before she became J-Lo, Jennifer Lopez was just an 18-year-old dancer from the Bronx with big dreams. She was so determined to succeed that she left home against her mother’s wishes. “My mom and I butted heads,” Lopez told W magazine this month. “I didn’t want to go to college—I wanted to try dance full-time. I was homeless.” To get by, she slept on cots in the dance studio, but the perseverance paid off—the next year, Lopez’s career took off as a Fly Girl on In Living Color.





Tyler Perry
In the 1990s, actor and movie mogul Tyler Perry was living in Atlanta, trying to stage the play that would get him famous, “I Know I’ve Been Changed.” After using up all of his savings, he became homeless, on and off for a period of 6 years, living in his car, or as he as he told Oprah, living in a “pay-by-the-week hotel that was full of crackheads.” In 1998, his hard work paid off when “I Know I’ve been Changed” became a hit, setting Perry on the path to stardom.





Halle Berry
Before becoming a certified Hollywood star, a young Halle Berry was forced to live in a homeless shelter as a resident arrival to New York. Speaking about that time of her life in an interview with Reader’s Digest in 2007, Berry said, “a girl had to do what a girl had to do. You can do that when you’re 21 and ambitious, and your eyes are this big and you don’t want to go home.” The former pageant queen broke out two years later in with her turn as a drug addict in 1991’s Jungle Fever.





Jim Carrey
The Canadian star experienced homelessness as a 12-year-old when his father lost his job. Forced to live in a van, Carrey told James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio that this time of his life was “a traumatic kick in the guts.” The former stand-up comedian was able to put this time behind him when he became one of the stars of In Living Color in 1990, launching his Hollywood career.





Kelly Clarkson
According to a 2011 New York Times profile, Kelly Clarkson tried to make it as a singer in Los Angeles, but she ended up living in her car after her apartment caught fire. Proving that, as she sings in her hit song, Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You), “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Clarkson returned to her home state of Texas, where she auditioned for American Idol. She went on to become the winner of the show’s first season, launching her mega-watt career.





Jewel
Living solo in San Diego after graduating from high school, singer and songwriter Jewel said that she became homeless once her boss at a computer warehouse fired her when she refused to sleep with him. During her year of homelessness, she continued to write songs and perform at local coffee houses and notes on her personal website: “I developed a loyal following. No one knew I was homeless.” Jewel’s debut album, Pieces of You, went on to go platinum 11 times over.





Hilary Swank
The Million Dollar Baby star once called a car home. As a teen, Swank moved to Los Angeles with her mother to pursue acting, and they reportedly lived out of an old car for a couple of weeks while also crashing at a friends’ house. “We had a friend who was selling their house,” she told CBS News. “And so they said, ‘You know, there’s no furniture, but you can stay there at night. And then, during the day, you have to leave so we can try and sell it. So we got air mattresses. Blew the air mattresses up. Slept on the air mattresses. And left in the morning.” Within months of their arrival, however, the Oscar-winning actress started landing roles and they found more permanent accommodations.





Shania Twain
Pop star Shania Twain was known to be guarded about her private life until the 2011 publication of her memoir, From this Moment On. In it, she recounts a childhood growing up in an abusive household and living for a time with her mother and siblings in a homeless shelter in Toronto. After leaving their home, Twain writes, “Mom got out of the car to use a pay phone while we sat and waited in the car, returning a few minutes later with a piece of paper on which she’d scribbled the address of a homeless shelter. That night, we slept in a crowded, sweltering place on cot-like beds spread out along the walls of a series of spacious, open rooms designed for large groups.” Twain went on to win five Grammys.