AMC Gala

First Ever AMC Gala

I’m so excited. I just got back from my European Vacation, and now I’m planning my trip to LA to attend the A Minor Consideration First Ever Guiding Star Gala.

AMC is very near and dear to my heart. These guys were there for me during all my stuff going on, and now, I want to pay it back.

They’re holding a big event on August 30th, at the famed Hollywood Lucky Strike Bowl. A bunch of other Former Child Stars are going to be there, and there will be a silent auction, as well as a whole bunch of memorabilia up on eBay. We’re trying to raise money so we can be more effective when it comes to helping out other former and current child stars. AMC has done to so much already to help change laws and make the industry a safer place for kids, but it’s not cheap to change legislation.

If you can make it out to the big event in LA, please come along, enjoy an evening bowling and socializing with your favourite childhood actors. If you can’t be in LA, keep an eye out for details of the auctions. There’s going to be a bunch of amazing stuff put up. Click on the poster above, and it will take you to the AMC Gala Page where you can buy tickets to the event.

I hope to see you guys there!

June 3, 2015

A Minor Consideration Gala

AMC is having a fundraiser!

As some of you know, I’m involved with a group in the US called A Minor Consideration. It was started by Paul Peterson back in 1991, to help current and former child actors. When I was going through all the shit with the investigation and court case in Australia, I found Paul, and he welcomed me into the fold. AMC has the most amazing group of people, who truly understand what it is to be a child actor, and the stuff that we go through. They’re not just a support group, they actively work to change laws, and make the industry a safer place for kids to work in. It’s not just about actors either, AMC helps to create child labour laws for kids in reality TV, who are often not covered at all in some states. A lot of people don’t know that each state has its own laws regarding child labour. Some States simply contract the parents, and all the kids work for free. They’re not covered by any kind of child protection laws, and can be worked all kinds of crazy hours, in any kind of weather, and don’t even have any right to the money their supposedly making.

A Minor Consideration is actively working with the government to protect child performers, but they can’t do it for free. It’s expensive to travel to DC to meet with the legislators. It costs money to help former child actors who need help. So for the first time ever, A Minor Consideration is having a fundraising event, and it’s going to be awesome.

If you’re in the LA area, or need a good excuse to go there, the Gala in going to be on August 30, 2015 at the Hollywood Lucky Strike.

There’s going to be a tonne of celebrities, a huge auction of memorabilia, and most importantly, a good time while we help raise money for AMC.

So spread the word, but your tickets, or just make a donation. I plan on being there, and I hope to see y’all there too.

Click the picture above, and it will take you to the AMC Gala page where you can buy tickets to the event, or just make a donation to this worthy cause.

May 14, 2014

Former Friends

Or better put, Friends who are Formers

I had a little rant yesterday about faux friends, but it’s not all bad. I have been lucky enough over the last few years to make some really good friends.

It’s kinda weird being an expat. You have a completely different background to other people. There may be some common ground as an adult, and you may learn about the locals culture, but you never lived it, so it will always be different.

It’s kinda the same thing with being a child actor. You had a completely different experience growing up to everyone else. Lots of former kid stars leave the industry and end up with regular jobs, but they don’t share that bond with other people of regular childhood experiences.

I get a double whammy of not growing up in the US, and even in Oz, I didn’t have the normal childhood experience. I have been lucky however to find other Expats to share time with, and even more exciting, other former child stars.

There’s not a lot of child actors in Australia. Maybe the kids from Secret Valley, Henderson Kids, Home & Away, but most are older, not young kids. Kate Ritchie, Rebecca Smart and Jamie Croft were about the only kids my age actively working when I was a kid. The kids in the US are lucky that with so many TV stations, they had a bunch of kids to share experiences with.

The kids in the US are even luckier, because they have set up groups to help try and protect them, to support them, and to just let them know there’s people there for them. I first found A Minor Consideration a few years ago. It’s founded by Paul Peterson, who was a teen idol, and probably best known for his work on The Donna Reed Show. I had written him an email letting him know I thought what he was doing was awesome, and I wished we had that kind of group in Australia. Fast forward a couple of years, and I now have a bunch of the most incredible people I can call friends. Others who share the odd experience of growing up on TV. Some also share the experience of being abused while working on TV.

In the middle of the trial, when I thought my world was going to fall apart, I got this:

These guys are amazing. When I first met them, they had no idea who I was. Nobody in the US has seen Hey Dad..! I never imagined they wold take me in as one of their own. Yet, they did. They sent me messages of support throughout the months leading up to the trial. I went to LA and met a bunch of them in person at a get together, where I was made to feel like part of a community. It didn’t matter I was a foreigner. We all shared some strange bond of growing up in the limelight, and I had many of them thanking me for going public, and trying to take a stand for all the kids who had been abused in the industry. Unfortunately the US has a statute of limitations, and by the time some found their courage to talk, the time had passed. Others thankfully had wonderful experiences growing up in the industry, and it was good to hear those stories too.

I’m pretty damn excited that later this month I’m headed to LA for the weekend and I get to hang out with these guys again. I feel very lucky to have met such a wonderful group of people.

Paul Peterson is retiring soon, and some of us are going to try to fill his big shoes. I’ve suggested that after my incredible experience, we have an international division, which was greeted with a big yes. So if you’re another former kid star, or a current child actor or entertainer who needs someone to talk to, even if it’s via email, let us know. A Minor Consideration and it’s members have been the most amazing group, and some days, I honestly don’t know if I could have made it through this without them. These guys are not just other former child stars, they’re my heroes.

A Minor Consideration can be contacted via their website or on FaceBook

A Minor Consideration isn’t just a social group. Paul and the others work tirelessly to help change laws to protect child entertainers. People think child stars have it all, but as my case has proved, sometimes they really need people to step up and help out.

November 5, 2013

Barbara Walters, you’re on notice.

Paul Peterson has a message for Barbara Walters.

Apparently I was not the only one upset by Barbara Walters telling Corey Feldman that he was destroying an entire industry by coming forward with his history of abuse. The woman looks uncomfortable throughout his entire interview, and the only time she addressed him was to say, “But, didn’t you used to be a drug addict?”

Here’s Paul Peterson, of A Minor Consideration’s open letter to Barbara. Hopefully Corey knows we are all standing with him.

Refute this, Barbara Walters

Shame on you, Ms. Walters for going after Corey Feldman, a truthful messenger speaking Truth to Power. Time for you to wake up to reality and pick on someone your own size.
Pedophilia exists across all cultures and social groupings. Incest is more prevalent than pedophilia, again, across all cultures and social groupings. Hollywood and what passes for the news business is not immune.
The Department of Labor estimates that One out of Ten workers in this country go to work impaired each and every day, through mental impairments, alcohol or drug use. The Entertainment Industry and the Fourth Estate are not immune from this grinding reality. The human condition is what it is, Ms. Walters, and the news business employees, just like government workers, are entirely human and thus heir to human failings…including incest and pedophilia…whether you report it or not.
Tell me, how many coaches, teachers, managers, agents, priests and kiddy talk show hosts have to be convicted of child molestation before you acknowledge what any student of human frailties already knows?
There are predators out there who target children…in every walk of life…and they gravitate toward those fields where our children can most often be found…namely playing fields, schools, theater companies and summer camps.
The question, Ms. Walters, is not whether Corey Feldman and Sarah Morris are telling the truth, but why your corporate puppet-masters don’t allow you to pull back the curtain on undeniable child abuse within the entertainment industry.
There are only two excuses for your ill-treatment of Corey Feldman; Politics and Paychecks. I know it’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that two-to-five children PER DAY are murdered by their parents or primary care-givers (in excess of 1,800 children per year according to the FBI crime statistics, 2009)…but that’s the fact and the Fourth Estate doesn’t report it.
Young people aren’t stupid, Ms. Walters. A million teenagers go missing every year, children in their thousands are dropping out of our failing schools. Social Services are overwhelmed by the numbers of abuse victims that foster care cannot accommodate…yet you sit there excusing the entertainment industry as if it plays no role in this downward spiral and is exempt from humanity’s flaws?
Young people are a market, Ms. Walters. They consume entertainment product. The people who produce entertainment for children go where the children are, and their motives in doing so are not above critical comment.

See the denial for yourself: http://www.hulu.com/watch/551589#i0,p0,d0

Paul Petersen

I’m grateful for Paul and A Minor Consideration and all they do for kids in the industry. They work hard to change laws and make sure kids are protected. They are also there for all us formers when we need a shoulder to cry on.