7 Shocking Facts About Celebrities’ Background

Talking about the background and origin of famous people, we have often thought of it as comparably good, as it should have been, to make them as great as today.
However, that isn’t always the case, because some actors and TV personalities seem to have climbed out of misery to achieve big goals and build their reputation.
Needless to say, there are some celebrities’ backgrounds that may cause you to realize that their fictitious miseries in their works are not even close to what they have been through in real life.

1. Jackie Chan

Source: Getty / YouTube

Chan's mother tried to sell her two children after losing her husband in World War II but ultimately decided to just dump them. She subsequently turned into an opium trafficker and a notorious gambler and wed the officer who had jailed her.
Before Chan was born, they changed their names and relocated to Hong Kong; as a result, he was unaware of any of this until a 2003 documentary revealed the reality. Oh, he also had a spy father. He never staged his own demise, at least.

2. Frances McDormand

Source: The New York Times

After being forsaken as a toddler by a "white trash" lady who attended her father's church, McDormand was taken in by a preacher and his wife. Though she's not completely sure, she was probably one of the pair’s nine foster kids at some point. They take in stray animals, she said. Additionally, they own nine cats.

3. Cary Elwes

Source: Getty / Vanity Fair

Cary Elwes's maternal grandparents were so opposed to their daughter marrying the impoverished aristocrat that they launched wardship procedures and obtained a restraining order against him, causing the couple to search all over the globe for a suitable match.
Then Castro revolutionized the entire country, which put a big damper on a honeymoon and forced them to flee in a raft once more after they eventually succeeded in Cuba.
Dominick was briefly detained, but they were married for ten years until he committed suicide by overdosing on barbiturates as a result of his refusal to take part in a high-society murder cover-up. It was essentially a Scorsese film with more upscale accents.

4. Nancy Kerrigan

Source: Getty

After a brawl with their father in 2010, Kerrigan's brother—who had a history of alcohol abuse and violence, was sentenced to two and a half years in jail as their dad died of a heart attack. Whatever you may think of Tonya Harding's family, none of their fights ended in death.

5. Mariah Carey

Source: Getty / Cohen Books

In her autobiography, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, she claimed that her sister once drugged and burned her with boiling hot tea while she was 12 years old and that her brother was an abusive drug dealer who once received payment to execute somebody (though his client clearly grew impatient and performed it on their own).
Her siblings have sued her over the memoir, yet her sister also alleges that their mother forced her to participate in satanic rituals, thus she may not be the most trustworthy source. She has a history of using angles; she was previously detained for soliciting sex in an advertisement that promised a "honey, sweet fantasy."

6. Leighton Meester

Source: Warner Bros.

Leighton Meester, who was actually born in prison after her parents were found guilty of importing more than 1,200 pounds of marijuana from Jamaica, claimed that because of her ancestry, she was "extremely nonjudgmental and open-minded," a quality that she had to hide on Gossip Girl.

7. Hope Solo

Source: ELLE

While her father was incarcerated for theft, the World Cup winner was conceived during a conjugal visit. After her parents' divorce, he was later detained for kidnapping her. Later, he was also detained for murder, though it was later discovered that the murder charge was a setup by a police officer who recognized an easy target.