When I think of famous people who lived in foster care, one of the first people I think of is Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and the ads that ran during the Olympics that encouraged people to become foster parents.
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Because when a child is displaced or their home life is unsafe, the government will step in and find other places for them to live (with foster parents, family members, or in a group home) temporarily, or until they are adopted or can safely reunite with family members. Hundreds of thousands of kids move through the foster care system in the United States each year. In the 2022 fiscal year, 570 thousand kids were somewhere in the process. (That’s nearly the same as the entire population of Wyoming!) And less than 10 percent of those kids — just over 53 thousand — were adopted that year, per the U.S. Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children, Youth and Families.
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We could keep throwing numbers at you (as you can see, there are a lot of big ones), but the foster care system isn’t about numbers. It’s about people. It’s about kids. Kids who are looking for, and deserve to live in, a safe and happy home.
In a 2018 op-ed for CNN, Biles called for an “education revolution” wherein anyone — regardless of their background — can have equal access to quality higher education.
“Although I was young when my foster care ordeal began, I remember how it felt to be passed off and over-looked,” she said. “Like nobody knew me or wanted to know me. Like my talents didn’t count, and my voice didn’t matter.”
“Finding a family made me feel like I mattered,” she continued. “Finding a passion, something I loved and was really good at, made me feel like I mattered. Representing my country and being part of such an amazing Olympic team matters, as does being a role model for those looking to fulfill their own dreams.”
Below, we’ve compiled a list of celebrities like Biles who spent time in foster care as kids — and grew into role models for other people who have gone through the foster care system.
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Simone Biles
Image Credit: Kristin Callahan/Everett Collection Olympic gymnast Simone Biles is a champion on the mat and a champion for many causes. She is an outspoken advocate for people struggling with mental illness, sexual assault survivors, and people living in foster care.
Her mom struggled with substance abuse problems, so Biles and her little sister were placed in the system when she was just 3 years old.
“I just remember, like, us as kids being so hungry,” she previously said. “ … And so we were taken and, thankfully, we actually got to stay in one foster home and we were all together … it was some of the best times ever. We were just so excited.”
Biles and her sister lived with various families before being adopted by her grandparents when she was six.
“My road to success began the day my grandfather and his wife officially adopted my sister and me,” Biles said in a 2018 op-ed for CNN.
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Tiffany Haddish
Image Credit: JA/Everett Collection When Tiffany Haddish was young, her mom was in a bad car accident and suffered a head injury that Haddish said made her “very violent.”
“Her vocabulary was not there, and I was getting attacked a lot … She couldn’t express herself with her words. She was expressing herself with her hands,” the actress said on She MD podcast.
“I was really mad when we ended up in foster care,” she continued. ” … There was a part of me that was very happy, because I’m like, ‘Oh, okay, good. I’m away from her now. I don’t have to deal with this anymore.’ Then, I was very upset because my sister and my brothers, they’re separated from me, and they have become my children.”
Haddish told CBS News she would be moved from house to house with all her things in trash bags. “And that made me feel like garbage,” she said, describing how she would pack and unpack the garbage bag.
“I remember the day somebody gave me a suitcase and made me feel like a person, like I was a traveler, a visitor,” she continued. “Like I was on a journey.”
Haddish’s grandma was supposedly angry when she got custody of Haddish. The comedian ultimately got emancipated and promptly kicked out. “She wasn’t getting no check for me no more, and it cost too much to have me around, and I was out,” Haddish said. “She said, ‘You’ve got a lot of friends. Go see if they’re really your friends.’”
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Barry Keoghan
Image Credit: Priscilla Grant/Everett Collection When Oscar-nominated actor Barry Keoghan was 12, his mom tragically died of a heroin overdose. His father was absent, and so he then spent seven years in foster care, living in 13 foster homes before landing with his maternal grandmother. His aunt and cousin also lived there, and his cousin moved into her mom’s room so he and his brother could have a room.
“Now she has her bedroom back, finally,” the Irish actor joked with GQ. “Not that I’ve got them their own house yet — but now that’s coming. At some point. Definitely making that happen.”
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Marilyn Monroe
Image Credit: Getty Images Marilyn Monroe’s childhood was quite tumultuous and though there are mixed reports about timelines and reasonings, it’s known that the famed actress went through the foster care system multiple times.
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Cher
Image Credit: Elizabeth Goodenough/Everett Collection Cher entered the foster care system at just 2 years old. The singer’s parents had split and her mom became sick. When she was able to return home, she typically alternated between her mom and her grandparents’ house — once having to stay at her grandparents’ home for six months because her mom didn’t have the money to support her and her siblings, per Foster Club.
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John Lennon
Image Credit: Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images The late great John Lennon was placed in the care of — and ultimately adopted by — his aunt and uncle after a social worker visited Lennon’s home and deemed his young parents unfit to care for him.
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Eddie Murphy
Image Credit: Elizabeth Goodenough/Everett Collection Eddie Murphy and his brother lived in the foster care system for about a year while his mom was sick. In the documentary, Eddie Murphy: Laugh ‘Til It Hurts, audiences learn that it was at the foster home where the comedian found refuge in shows like I Love Lucy and Looney Tunes, and he soon started working on impressions.
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Coco Chanel
Image Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images Gabriele Bonheur (AKA Coco Chanel) was sent to an orphanage with her sister at age 12 after her mom passed away and her dad decided he couldn’t care for all his kids. It was reportedly at the orphanage that the famed fashion designer learned how to sew.
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Seal
Image Credit: Jesse Grant/Variety via Getty Images As a newborn, Seal was immediately placed with a foster family in Essex. He spent the first four years of his life with that family before he was returned to his biological mother. The British singer was unable to find his foster family after that, and didn’t reconnect with them until Oprah Winfrey orchestrated an emotional reunion between Seal and his foster sister Hilary.
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Darryl “DMC” McDaniels
Image Credit: John Nacion/Variety via Getty Images Darryl McDaniels didn’t find out he spent the first five years of his life in foster care until he was 35 and writing his memoir. “I was hurt and confused … it felt totally unreal,” he said of the revelation.
The news inspired the Run DMC singer to start two organizations: The Felix Organization/Adoptees For Children and Camp Felix. The former gives enriching experiences to kids in the system and the latter is a summer camp for kids living in foster care, per Time Out Fostering.
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Rosie Perez
Image Credit: Kristin Callahan/Everett Collection Not every person’s experience in foster care is positive. When Rosie Perez was 3, her mom could no longer take care of her, and so she moved from home to home. In her memoir, Handbook for an Unpredictable Life, Perez details the abuse and neglect she experienced in the foster care system.
“I became very introverted and shut down and angry and quiet,” the actress told Forbes.
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Alonzo Mourning
Image Credit: John Nacion/Everett Collection NBA star Alonzo Mourning entered the foster care system in his early teen years and decided to live in a group home. The basketball star credits his foster mom as the one who helped him develop into the man he is today, per Sevita Health.
“I was one of the fortunate ones,” he said. “I come from a broken home. I didn’t know what direction I was going … I could have gone in a whole different direction, which, statistically speaking, a lot of foster kids get into.”
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