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As a teen actress, starring in a hit Disney movie introduced Alyson Stoner to the darker side of fame.
The entertainer had been performing since age 3. The 32-year-old danced alongside Missy Elliott and appeared in “Cheaper by the Dozen” and “Camp Rock,” among other films. Now, Stoner is detailing the dangers of Hollywood stardom in a new memoir, “Semi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything.”
“Camp Rock” debuted on the Disney Channel in 2008 to 8.9 million viewers, resulting in a rabid fandom that the castmates weren’t anticipating. It made Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers household names. And at 15, Stoner, their co-star, suddenly became the target of stalkers and an attempted kidnapping.
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“My team vetted a request from an international organization dedicated to fulfilling end-of-life wishes for terminally ill children,” the now 32-year-old wrote. “I hopped on a virtual call and met Emily, a superfan of ‘Camp Rock.’ Mom corresponded with their reps, who asked for travel information to book a flight for an in-person visit. After claiming I needed to travel alone, my mom’s intuition sounded an alarm.”
“Though my team approved the request, my mom did her own due diligence and discovered the website was a scam, the young girl was a plant, and I was walking into a kidnapping plot to be held hostage for ransom,” Stoner revealed.
Months later, the star received 50 messages on Twitter from a middle-aged stalker who was convinced that “I – as a teen – was his wife, named Cinderella, with whom he shared pet mice.”
According to the book, the obsessive fan’s numerous messages alternated “between praise and harmful threats.” Then one day, he implied that he would show up to YouthArts, where Stoner volunteered weekly as an instructor.
The man’s IP was traced to Kansas. But just in case, Stoner provided a photo to the front desk, warning staff to be on the lookout.
Then one day, Stoner spotted him. He entered through the back, and was holding flowers and fuzzy purple house slippers. Students ranging from ages six to 12 were in the building unaware that anything was unfolding.
“I made a thousand calculations in a split second,” Stoner wrote. “There are no exits besides that doorway. I have vulnerable children under my care, and I can’t scare them. I [needed] to get to the front desk to call the cops. I don’t know what mental state he’s in. I can’t provoke him.”
A panicked Stoner rushed to the front desk. Police were called, and they chased the man for about a mile. But he was gone.
Stoner, who goes by they/them pronouns, claimed that the police informed them that the man “has to physically lay a hand on you before we can do much.”
“But he said he would ‘end me’ if I didn’t wear my hair in a bun in the way he liked… So I have to die, and then you can help?” Stoner wrote.
According to the book, the stalker appeared later wearing “an army green shirt” – a completely different ensemble. Stoner managed to get help from a parent to escape. Still, Stoner claimed that a studio manager labeled them “paranoid.”
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“Without a budget for a bodyguard, I became an expert at studying body language and herd behavior, noting traits and tendencies among people so I could anticipate interactions,” wrote Stoner.
“Middle-aged men were typically dads of Disney-loving children, Missy Elliott or Steve Martin fans, or creeps. By the time they approached, I’d already clocked how long they’d been staring, whether they were lone wolves, and if their hands were visible or hidden in pockets.”
This was just one of several frightening experiences that marked Stoner’s adolescence while being in the spotlight.
Stoner described how someone gave out their number, which resulted in receiving nearly 900 text messages from strangers. Many asked for money. Others fired “really nasty messages” that sent their “already paper-thin trust to the shredder.”
Whenever Stoner went out in public, they had to devise plans to get to and from destinations to avoid being followed. But some managed to track Stoner’s locations, and one even discovered their flight itinerary. Love letters appeared outside hotel rooms, each one leaving Stoner uneasy. They also began questioning the motives of friends. Heading to dinner at a restaurant always meant slipping in and out in secret.
Stoner grew up in Toledo, Ohio, and was scouted by the same woman who discovered hometown celebrity Katie Holmes. As a child, Stoner and their mother moved to Los Angeles to pursue a Hollywood career. By age 12, Stoner was poised to star in their own show until another teen sitcom – “Hannah Montana” – was picked up. And by their mid-teens, Stoner was struggling with an eating disorder. They sought treatment at age 17.
Later in the book, Stoner also claimed they were sexually assaulted by a potential business partner. The alleged assailant attended wellness events and was “well-adored in the community.”
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“The last image I saw was a poster on the wall of a ravenous feline leaping for its prey,” Stoner recalled in the book. “Then I blacked out, and he raped me.”
Stoner recently recalled to Fox News Digital how, after working in showbiz for nearly 20 years, they woke up to “zero dollars” in the bank account. There should have been over a million.
“Even though I was absolutely frugal, and I continue to be, there are a lot of loopholes that leave room for a child’s money to be mishandled, even by people who have good intentions but don’t understand the unique business structures of entertainment expenses,” Stoner explained.
“It was shocking to wake up to zero dollars in an account,” Stoner admitted. “I was mostly in denial at first. I was afraid for my future. I wondered after all this time, if I can be duped once, will I be taken advantage of again? Do I have the competence, the life skills to find my way outside the industry?”
The entertainer was in their early 20s when they made the shocking discovery.
Stoner and their older sister teamed up to investigate years of records, the book details. The duo discovered that Stoner’s business team had mismanaged finances, splurging on lavish gifts. Their mother, a “career bookkeeper,” had been paying herself a monthly salary since Stoner was a child, plus taking “one-off payments” of “several thousand” over the years.
There were also decades of hefty expenses to maintain a successful career in Hollywood. There were never any conversations about budgeting and saving.
Stoner wrote that 15 years of labor turned into “a crumbling house of cards.”
“A lot of folks are unaware that it can cost between $10,000 and $20,000 for different expenses,” said Stoner. “Many artists are losing money while spending a lot of time and energy and resources auditioning, only to be rejected a majority of the time… The creative industry is largely unpaid labor. When you’re a child, the assumption is that you can afford to do this for fun, because you aren’t necessarily the breadwinner.”
A devastated Stoner met with an entertainment lawyer. Ultimately, they decided against legal action, writing that they “can’t burn a bridge with my mother.” Stoner said they felt loyalty and compassion for the matriarch, who had also struggled with alcohol. Fox News Digital reached out to Stoner’s mother for comment.
“I began performing at the age of 3,” Stoner reflected. “I attended a performance convention in New York at age 6. Unbeknownst to me, this was a recruitment funnel for Hollywood. And my Midwestern family had zero affiliation with the industry.”
“I had zero aspirations to pursue the industry,” said Stoner. “And yet, there was a funnel with lots of different players, from agents to managers, to casting directors, who were used to seeing children go through this process almost like a conveyor belt, becoming packaged products for audiences.”
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“At 6 years old, I couldn’t understand the short- and long-term implications of… having corporations own my name, image and likeness,” Stoner continued. “It was also impossible for my family, who were given no upfront manual for what to expect, to recognize the consequences of disrupting every area of my childhood development, removing me from school to navigate 80-hour work weeks.”
Today, Stoner is the founder of Movement Genius, an online platform that aims to make mental health support more accessible. Stoner is also a voice actor for Disney.
Stoner noted that being an advocate for the next generation of child performers is one of their most important roles today.
“My memoir gives people an opportunity to learn about the intimate details of what happened on all those sets growing up, while also answering very timely questions about what it means to navigate the world,” said Stoner. “I tell people, ‘Come for the childhood chaos. Stay for the cultural critique.’”
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