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00:00:00My baby loves me.
00:00:16There isn't another industry that employs children as much as movie and TV sets.
00:00:25He was one of those kids who really seemed to enjoy the fame.
00:00:30How do you guys feel? Great.
00:00:32The general public, they like seeing a kid perform and the kid seems so happy on these programs.
00:00:42They don't think about what's going on in that child's system or behind the scenes.
00:00:49He had all this fame and fortune.
00:00:51You always hear about the child actor that comes out all wild.
00:00:54And then suddenly it disappeared.
00:00:58I've done all right.
00:01:01I literally got attacked and I'm the guy that's going to jail.
00:01:06The child actors as they grow up can become adults.
00:01:09We're violent and criminal.
00:01:11And this is his second assault.
00:01:14What's his name?
00:01:15You ever seen meter pain?
00:01:18What was it like to have this label on you as someone who was charged with murder?
00:01:24There were several girls who thought they were raped by Brian Bonsal.
00:01:28Brian Bonsal.
00:01:29I'll give you, your mama, your daughter.
00:01:33Okay, I'm only six now.
00:01:34Give me a break.
00:01:41With Andy, with Brian Bonsal, I get to really show what a softy he is.
00:01:44We're all becoming who we are on this thing.
00:01:49My boyfriend won't let me leave the house.
00:01:52He just seems going to kill my three-year-old daughter.
00:02:04I'm Dr. Drew Pinsky.
00:02:05I'm an internist, a dictionologist.
00:02:07I worked in a psychiatric hospital for 35 years.
00:02:09And I had a radio show at night called Love Line.
00:02:13I had a regular nightly show on HLN, CNN, for many years.
00:02:18I worked on a show called Celebrity Rehab.
00:02:22And across that time, I interacted with and or treated many people who had been child stars.
00:02:29A major issue with a child actor is no one stays a child forever.
00:02:36And as they grow up, can have significant issues.
00:02:41It can be a mess.
00:02:43Some of it is related to having been a child actor.
00:02:47But the most serious are those that grow up, become adults, who are violent and criminal.
00:02:53I need someone to come here now.
00:02:55My face is slammed in the ground.
00:02:58This is his second assault for domestic violence.
00:03:03With child actors, we really want an explanation for how someone goes from their career of choice to a crime.
00:03:10It's disturbing. You know, we want answers because we want it to not happen again.
00:03:15Was there something in their upbringing as a child performer that led them down this violent path?
00:03:20As many child stars that I've spoken to have pointed out to me, performing and acting in itself is not the whole story.
00:03:27And so in order to understand this, we'll have to examine a number of different performers.
00:03:32And what their experiences were like in their most important developmental stages, starting with their life before they made it big.
00:03:38Because the extraordinary thing about the human being is that things that happen to us during development, in childhood, have a disproportionate effect on everything that is to follow.
00:03:49What made you interested in talking to us?
00:04:00Well, I guess some topics and past history I've had that I've never been able to talk about.
00:04:07And there's rumors and things like that out there that have painted me in a different light than I am.
00:04:16I was born in California.
00:04:20My mom was very into theater.
00:04:22She loved that world of performance.
00:04:24So when she saw that spark in me, she wanted me to follow suit.
00:04:28She got me into acting and dance and vocal lessons and all that stuff.
00:04:33I think that Brian would never have been an actor at all if it wasn't for his mom, whether that's good or bad.
00:04:43I knew he was different.
00:04:45Like I have footage of him at three singing all the songs from Jesus Christ Superstar and Freddie My Love and breakdancing and he just loved that.
00:04:56Oh, we're going to do a song.
00:04:58Brian and his sister had a remote and they had a tripod and that's what they would do all day.
00:05:06I've always thought this is really cute of Brian making up his own songs.
00:05:13When I was three years old, I did a commercial.
00:05:23I have this faint like blurry vision of it was like a bedroom and it was just all the cameras, the lights and there was two other kids and it was just like we had to play with this teddy bear.
00:05:38At that age, you're like, what is this? I don't know what this is anyway, so.
00:05:44Something that can happen to children is that the parent can over idealize them, particularly during that early childhood window, three to seven, that kind of area.
00:05:55And I could see how his mom would foster that, fuel that, particularly a kid that's having success and feel herself gratified performing.
00:06:06I have a lot of tattoos now. I didn't get tattoos till I was 18.
00:06:12Like all these came when I was 18 because my parents was that type of strip.
00:06:18I definitely didn't have them when I was acting. Definitely.
00:06:22DJ grows up in Compton. Compton is part of South Central Los Angeles.
00:06:28Very important for hip hop and rap. But there was a lot of crime and a lot of gang activity, particularly in the 80s.
00:06:35I have a big family. My family was into the streets and in jail.
00:06:40I have a lot of family members in there. And my mom wasn't having it.
00:06:45By the time she had me, she was like, let's get out of Compton.
00:06:50And my dad got a regular job. And then my dad got us a house and then moved us out of there.
00:06:57His parents wanted to put him in acting honestly because they did everything to ensure a safe outcome for DJ.
00:07:05I started acting when I was around four or five years old. Honey Nut Cheerios.
00:07:11My whole family loves them.
00:07:13That was the very first commercial I did. And they didn't even use my face. They used my hand.
00:07:19I swear, they used my hand. But doing the real was fun. Like, everything in acting was fun for me.
00:07:27So every time I did an audition and I got it, it was like, all right, cool. Let's stick with this.
00:07:35I'm an independent talent scout. I started what's now the Sidemen Academy back in 1984.
00:07:41I visit a lot of high schools and I talk to the kids about what people are looking for.
00:07:47We want kids who are very outgoing and verbal, who have a good look for camera.
00:07:52And then I'll make an invitation to work with them.
00:07:55I worked with Lori Loughlin when she was 16. Reese Witherspoon.
00:08:00We have a young lady who is 15 years old. Please welcome Sarah Jessica Parker.
00:08:05One time. I went out to Fort Collins, Colorado. And this little boy came up to my table.
00:08:10And he was adorable and outgoing, very verbal. And his name was Zachary Ty Bryant.
00:08:16Zachary Ty Bryant was a child in Colorado. And it was during elementary school that he began appearing in print and commercial ads.
00:08:25Zachary's look was more of the all-American look. He was about eight. He went to my program in New York.
00:08:33And then I presented him to agents. We picked a monologue for him that was very expressive and a little precocious.
00:08:43I'm going to be doing a monologue called video dating service.
00:08:47And kind of funny from a kid his age doing it. So he's playing somebody who's much older than he is.
00:08:54Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.
00:08:57He's picking up girls, trying to be attractive.
00:09:00Okay, I'm only six now. Give me a break.
00:09:03After working with this talent coach, he signs with a top youth agent and moves to Los Angeles.
00:09:11And his manager snatched him up, signed him up. Kid was doing commercials.
00:09:16I remember that Zachary enjoyed acting. The show business loves that.
00:09:25My name is Mark Warren and I'm a writer, producer, sometime director.
00:09:30My name is Joey Paul Jensen and I'm a Hollywood casting director.
00:09:36We're the ones that have seen 2,000 kids one-on-one to really make this calculation to help a show be successful.
00:09:48And you just know when someone's really talented though, honestly, by the way they walk in the door.
00:09:54They already know that the part is theirs.
00:09:59Like when I first met Shia LaBeouf.
00:10:03Shia was eight years old and at the time I was casting Hey Arnold for Nickelodeon.
00:10:09And he came in to audition.
00:10:12And when he walked into the recording studio, he just walked in and he looked everybody in the eye and was like,
00:10:18Hey everybody, I'm Shia LaBeouf and I really just want you all to know I'm going to win an Academy Award.
00:10:26There have been child actors since the beginning of movies, but the number of minors performing didn't explode until much later.
00:10:33In the 60s, parents really monitored how much their kids watched TV.
00:10:39Now by the time you get to the 80s, those kids who grew up on TV are now adults.
00:10:47So they don't really have much problem with their kids watching TV because they did it.
00:10:53However, if they want their kids to watch television, then they have to be kids centric stories.
00:10:59So by the 80s, we started seeing more kind of family programming, whole family.
00:11:06A lot of these shows, like there are episodes where we're just following the children.
00:11:10It became kind of its own genre.
00:11:13So you get shows like Growing Pains.
00:11:15Full House, Step by Step.
00:11:16And Family Ties.
00:11:18My family would gather around the TV to watch Family Ties.
00:11:22It is definitely a family-oriented show.
00:11:26And it had some politics mixed in there.
00:11:29Would you do something you knew was wrong?
00:11:33Which went right over my head at that age, you know?
00:11:38Family Ties is a show about this couple.
00:11:40They were hippies in the 60s.
00:11:42Flower power was another way of telling people to put down their weapons
00:11:46and to give each other flowers and love instead.
00:11:48Now it's the 80s, it's the Reagan administration,
00:11:50and they are trying to figure out how to raise these three oddly conservative children.
00:11:55Love, flowers, peace.
00:11:57Kiss me the creeps.
00:11:59Breakout Star was Michael J. Fox.
00:12:02By the show's fourth season, the producers were adding a fourth kid into the family
00:12:06and casting for the role of Michael J. Fox's younger brother.
00:12:10I tried out for Family Ties around three and a half to four,
00:12:15and with 2,000 other kids, I believe, in the waiting room,
00:12:19my mom was like, you know, if you sit here and be calm,
00:12:23I'll get you whatever toy you want after this.
00:12:26And the audition, it was, you know, walk forward, back, left, right,
00:12:30make sure I knew how to take direction of some sort and say Alex is king,
00:12:35and I think that was it.
00:12:36I did a few shows of Wayne's Brothers and Grace and the Fire.
00:12:47I was working on Family Matters.
00:12:49I want them to be happy for Christmas.
00:12:51Usually, I go through three auditions.
00:12:54You go through one, you get a call back, bam, you got the job.
00:12:58That's what it is. Three. Off top.
00:13:01But one time, when I was in the fifth grade, I did an audition for The Hughley Show.
00:13:06In 1998, ABC was producing a sitcom around D.L. Hughley.
00:13:11The show, The Hughleys, was about an upwardly mobile black family that moves into a white neighborhood,
00:13:15like an updated version of The Jeffersons.
00:13:19And so they were auditioning for the role of Michael, the 10-year-old son.
00:13:23I kept getting callback, kept getting callback.
00:13:24Like, it was kind of like, man, am I going to get a job or not?
00:13:28Like, man, just tell me something.
00:13:30So I went to like eight or nine callbacks.
00:13:34And we just kept going.
00:13:36And every time I had to audition, the crowd that I had to audition for just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
00:13:43I remember doing all those callbacks, all eight, nine callbacks.
00:13:49And I remember my mom finally telling me, baby, you got it.
00:13:54In 1998, DJ plays D.L. Hughley's son on the show.
00:13:59Boom. That's when I was like, okay, I'm here.
00:14:02I remember my mom getting the call.
00:14:05Brian Bonsall, at age five, joins the cast of Family Ties and he becomes Michael J. Fox's little brother, Andy Keaton.
00:14:11Zachary Ty Bryant was about six months to a year later after the workshop.
00:14:16He was on Home Improvement.
00:14:18I was very excited. I got a kid on a major ABC series.
00:14:22I meet six-year-olds and eight-year-olds who are like, the only thing I want to do is be on TV.
00:14:27And then they never dream it as good as it really is in terms of having an audience, having fans, being famous.
00:14:34You know, there's a lot of great things about being famous.
00:14:41But here's the rub.
00:14:43A small percent of them actually become that famous and make that kind of money.
00:14:48And then of the rest, they are going to have a really bad time.
00:14:53Overwhelmingly, these kids grow up with really brutal stories about what happened to them.
00:14:57Everybody knew the kid from Family Ties had run-ins with the law.
00:15:03It was more shocking than anything.
00:15:06I just noticed Zach started breaking down and crying.
00:15:13Who's that?
00:15:18Alex.
00:15:20Who is Alex?
00:15:22Alex is gay.
00:15:24It's a great scene, yeah.
00:15:26I definitely remember that because, you know, that's what I had to say on the interview.
00:15:31It was so crazy to go to Paramount for the first time and suddenly having there be a set and a live audience.
00:15:39It was a really big show.
00:15:41Family Ties was actually the number two show in the country.
00:15:46Cosby was first and Family Ties was second.
00:15:49All except, I think, one week we got number one.
00:15:52And Entertainment Weekly actually named Family Ties one of the greatest family sitcoms ever.
00:15:57I won the best young actor, I think, two years in a row.
00:16:00I still have those trophies.
00:16:04When D.O. Hughley cast me as Michael Hughley, I felt like I was at home.
00:16:10When I was on the set.
00:16:12I would look for signs of him in the character.
00:16:16Like, that's really him right there.
00:16:18Or, like, I'd be like, oh, you did your thing right there.
00:16:21Bill Spoonie about to stir it up up in here.
00:16:23It was an episode when, um, he was rapping.
00:16:28And it's hilarious to me now.
00:16:30You ladies can't get with me because I still live with my moms.
00:16:33It is the funniest thing ever.
00:16:36I would go out and, you know, oh, my God, you're from the Hughleys.
00:16:46I got your autograph.
00:16:51When I was Michael Hughley, bam.
00:16:52That's when I finally started hitting a path of, like, okay, we going up there.
00:16:59On The Parenthood, we cast a young Orlando Brown.
00:17:04I think he was six years old.
00:17:06He had five or six lines in the show playing George Washington Carver.
00:17:09You could just see him shine, but because he was younger than the other kids in our cast,
00:17:19we didn't really go back to him because we couldn't really use him in that show.
00:17:24Orlando Brown was the cutie pie little boy actor.
00:17:29In 1995, when he was eight years old, he was in a movie called Major Pain.
00:17:34When you see him in the scene, he's just this little guy with all these big dudes.
00:17:39He was older than me.
00:17:40And we were coming up at the same time.
00:17:43And Orlando was such a wonderful kid and such a terrific actor.
00:17:48It was obvious that he was going to be something special.
00:17:54We cast Orlando Brown on the show called That's So Raven.
00:17:58Orlando was 13 at the time.
00:18:01One of the first that comes on the Disney Channel was That's So Raven.
00:18:06I was really excited about That's So Raven because it was a rare program that had a girl of color in the center of it.
00:18:15Raven has two best friends and one of them is played by Orlando Brown.
00:18:19He would hit every joke. He had a great sense of timing and was prepared.
00:18:25It was kind of the golden age of the Disney Channel.
00:18:28So all those kids, Raven, Orlando, they were superstars.
00:18:31And the tapings of Raven were like a Beatles concert back in the 60s.
00:18:39The fans were rabid and enthusiastic.
00:18:43When they would come out and take their bows at the beginning, the cheers were crazy.
00:18:48Audiences are intense to be sitting in front of and to generating laughs from.
00:18:55And by the way, when the cast comes out, if you've ever been to a live audience sitcom filming,
00:19:01the audience, you know, is all over them, meets them, says hi to them, gets autographs from them,
00:19:05oftentimes before the filming begins.
00:19:07Family Ties pushed me into the limelight to a point where I couldn't walk down the street.
00:19:16And I remember one person saying it, there's Andy.
00:19:21And then them and their friends realizing it and other bystanders realizing it.
00:19:26And then forming, you know, a circle around me.
00:19:30Getting surrounded by screaming people.
00:19:35And I didn't understand it.
00:19:38I was on the brink of crying and scares you too, especially when you're four.
00:19:47It was a few months after the first show started airing.
00:19:51Some older lady rushing up and saying, Andy, Andy, Andy, and trying to hug him.
00:19:56I mean, she's just a little old lady, but it was still like you're touching my child and you think you know him.
00:20:03I was very over aware of what kind of people there were in the world.
00:20:09When I was a little older, my mom started telling me about one dude specifically who was sending me,
00:20:15I don't know how, but sending me weird pictures, starting when I was on Family Ties.
00:20:19I just remember them just being a little off, like nothing sexual in there, but it was just very, you know,
00:20:27I think you're the greatest actor, blah, blah, blah, and some 30 year old guy.
00:20:32The guy was writing to him from prison.
00:20:38Boy, it's hard to have a positive experience exclusively being a child star at that time.
00:20:44Children need to be children. They need to play. They need to be with their peers a lot, most of the day.
00:20:53The environment of production is exactly the opposite. Most of it is work.
00:20:58People don't realize that when you memorize shows for a sitcom, it's 45 pages of dialogue a week.
00:21:05And the dialogue changes every single day.
00:21:08They bring in the studio audience for four hours, and just like a play, you do page one to page 45,
00:21:15and you do the whole thing.
00:21:17And for kids who are on a set, the hardest part is you always feel like the eyes are watching you.
00:21:25You're never alone.
00:21:28You got to be places on time. You have to be wearing certain things.
00:21:33You work more hours than some adults who could never handle that job.
00:21:38And then you want me to grow up and listen to you.
00:21:41It's hard to grow up with that respect for authority.
00:21:46Did it get strenuous? Was there times where it felt like a full force job and I'd rather be doing other things?
00:21:55Yes, definitely.
00:21:56Did I have tantrums like normal kids when there's a live audience waiting and I don't want to change the clothes for the next scene?
00:22:03Yes, I did.
00:22:05At times, the whole Family Ties cast would be in there trying to calm me down.
00:22:09We need to get out there, Brian.
00:22:10I have yet to find a fully ethical form of child acting and often the kinds of kids who are put into these kinds of industries are kids who are already having problems before they started working on a set.
00:22:24Brian, at age four or five, is severely upset by the rupture in his family. His parents divorced. Right at that time, he is thrust into this production of Family Ties.
00:22:40It was a very, very hard decision and as someone who studied early childhood and knew that four and five year old boys, it's the worst time in their life to get a divorce.
00:22:51I know he would give up everything that he gained to have had his dad there in those formative years.
00:23:02So while I was doing that show, it affected me a lot and there were ways that I acted out like horrible ways.
00:23:11Destroying my room, breaking the window. I cut my eyelashes one time. It hurt me that, you know, I just wanted my dad.
00:23:20It's hard to talk about.
00:23:26The audience sees Brian as this cute little child on Family Ties, yet they have no sense that in his real life, he's in significant distress.
00:23:36So if you're a kid on a live action show, there's an audience and a laugh track and a network executive to impress.
00:23:54Every day a child is going to be exposed to this adulation and the feedback of a crowd and it can feed into the sense of grandiosity and self-importance.
00:24:04It kind of created a little bit of a monster.
00:24:06From what I noticed, the way Orlando took to this type of fame, he seemed to really enjoy it.
00:24:15Change. Broken wings. I need your pen to come and hear me.
00:24:22He began to have these followers coming onto the set that maybe were not the best people for him.
00:24:30There were reports that there was a smell of weed coming from the dressing room.
00:24:39I never saw him do it and I never spoke to him about it because our job was to deliver a show.
00:24:47I'm not going to yell at some kid not to smoke pot, but that's not my job.
00:24:53He's got parents for that. I'm not his parent.
00:24:58Were they on set?
00:25:00I can say I do not remember his parents being on set.
00:25:07Now, in a child star, child performer situation, an adult has to be on the set.
00:25:13Typically, it's the child's parent, but that is not always the case.
00:25:17It can be any appointed guardian who may not have the same interest as mom or dad.
00:25:23We had a social worker on the set and there were people there looking out for his well-being
00:25:30and making sure he didn't work too many hours and that he was protected.
00:25:33But I don't remember his mom coming to the set.
00:25:37He didn't always have his mother with him on set all the time, but he had parents and parental guidance.
00:25:41We smelled the marijuana that one time.
00:25:45There were certain times where he wouldn't come out of his dressing room,
00:25:48where he didn't show up on set and we were concerned about him.
00:25:51There were people from the network, from the production company that did speak to him about it.
00:25:57He was not arrested. He did not get into trouble. Maybe he should have.
00:26:02I don't know. Maybe that would have been a cautionary tale for him or a lesson.
00:26:06But we've also got a show to put on.
00:26:10One of the downfalls of being famous, there's nobody around to wag a finger, take away your allowance.
00:26:17And I think that's what happened to Zach, probably.
00:26:22Home Improvement was mostly a vehicle for Tim Allen, who's got three kids.
00:26:25Zachary Ty Bryan played the eldest brother, Brad.
00:26:30Zach was about nine when we started.
00:26:33Zach looked like the kid who could maybe puncture a kid's bicycle tire because he thought it was funny.
00:26:40Zachary was the one who was mischievous, got in more trouble.
00:26:44When Zachary was only 14 years of age, he started drinking and at night he would go to nightclubs and they would let him in because he was the kid from Home Improvement.
00:26:58The fact that Zachary could do this and get away with it, it's fame.
00:27:02And it was the culture at the time that that was sort of, oh, kids will be kids, when people sort of nod, nod, wink, wink, didn't pay attention to children the way they should have.
00:27:14If you don't get to go through the normal developmental milestones of childhood, you'll pay a price.
00:27:20One is they're not allowed to do what other children do normally, go to school, develop, interact with their peers.
00:27:29It is on some level traumatizing and on another level subjugates their development.
00:27:38When DJ got cast for the Michael Hughley role, going back and forth from school and set, he was gone majority of the month.
00:27:44So out of school three weeks, in school one week, and that was my regular.
00:27:51He felt like he was missing out on those special moments that was happening at school.
00:27:57I mean, I went to, I think, five or six different elementary schools.
00:28:03Schools didn't really like when you came and went.
00:28:06So I would start at a new school, get singled out, picked on while I got physical and I had some rough times in schools.
00:28:15You want to understand why it's hard for a kid to adjust from a life of being on a set to being in the actual world.
00:28:21Just think about the reality. Five days a week for six, seven months a year, morning till night, you're surrounded by people on the set.
00:28:31These intense relationships that you develop on a family sitcom, it's a second family, literally.
00:28:40There's a scene where Michael J. Fox is playing guitar with Brian.
00:28:44Whatever I sing, you sing, okay?
00:28:47Right.
00:28:49Baby, please don't go.
00:28:51Baby, please don't go.
00:28:53They're singing a song together and it's very sweet.
00:28:56Baby, please don't go.
00:28:58Baby, please don't go.
00:28:59Baby, please don't go.
00:29:00He just starts laughing in the middle of the scene, but it's cute.
00:29:05My connection with Michael J. Fox at that point was he would drive me around in his Ferrari.
00:29:12We would go hang out at his house, play his guitars.
00:29:16He taught me how to dive into a pool, you know?
00:29:19With Andy, with Brian Bonsal, because there are moments that I get to really show what a softy he is.
00:29:25He really loves kids and he really loves people.
00:29:30Him being my big brother on the show, feeling like a big brother, it just felt like a real family.
00:29:35Come on, Dad. You know how long I had to wait to have a little brother?
00:29:38What I had to endure?
00:29:40Just excited, that's all.
00:29:41Well, that scene, it's a really heartfelt scene where he sits me up there and he's like, you know, you're my little brother.
00:29:47Even though I was so young, I just felt very comfortable because I was, because it was almost real.
00:29:54He's having a faux family experience, right?
00:29:58And I imagine it felt really good to him.
00:30:01But the real issue is these productions, even when they're successful, only go for two to five years, maybe seven or eight years.
00:30:09I was seven, but I don't think I really understood the magnitude of the whole situation, of it ending.
00:30:21I don't think at seven I really knew the magnitude of the word forever.
00:30:25I mean, it's definitely emotional, you know, you can see it in everyone's face and, and, uh, that final episode, I think that part was a little confusing as a kid.
00:30:40Everybody was super close and did feel like a family.
00:30:45And then it's over and you're like, where's my family?
00:30:47The thing that kids on set would miss the most when it ends is not the fame, it's not the money, it's not the recognition.
00:30:58It's the fellow cast members.
00:30:59And Zachary Ty Bryan. Don't forget, he ended up being 17 at the end of the show.
00:31:23So that's the kids' entire formative years.
00:31:26I spent more time with them than I did my real family growing up.
00:31:30It's important for kids to have routine because routine is safety for them.
00:31:34And so when those shows get canceled, you kind of have to think of it as like, when you were in the fourth grade, what would you have done if you came to school one day and they told you school's done?
00:31:44There's no more school. You don't go to school here anymore.
00:31:47I remember him telling me the day that Home Improvement was done, he went back to the set and they were like already building a new set.
00:31:52It wasn't even the same. It was just an empty studio that used to be his home.
00:31:59I didn't even think the Hughleys was going in. That's how it felt. And that's what I remember. I always remember, hey, I'm supposed to be on the Hughleys until I'm 18.
00:32:08And that was just my little eighth grade, seventh grade brain. And so when they finally called and was like, yo, we're not picking it up.
00:32:18It was like a, wait, what? I couldn't believe that I'm not about to see DL. I couldn't believe that I'm not about to see Ashley.
00:32:25We did the Hughleys for four years. I was 14.
00:32:30As they grow up, when they lose the family that they've been around all those years, it can trigger depression, substance abuse, homelessness, dysfunction, and violence.
00:32:43In 2007, I was arrested for false imprisonment and assault.
00:32:51Jackie, he has multiple DUIs and pled guilty to fourth degree assault of his girlfriend.
00:32:58Hey, this is 911.
00:32:59Please, I need someone to come here now.
00:33:01What a bitch, Jerry.
00:33:02With Orlando, there were demons, clearly demons, has forced him into some horrible choices.
00:33:08I'll kill you, your mama, your wife.
00:33:12After I stopped acting, I was accused of murder.
00:33:25So right towards the end of Family Ties, I started doing a plethora of made-for-TV movies.
00:33:31I was on Star Trek Next Generation.
00:33:35I was Worf's son, Alexander.
00:33:38I had so many things on the horizon at that time, doing movie after movie.
00:33:43Brian had a three-picture deal with Disney, and Fatherhood was the first film he did with Patrick Swayze.
00:33:51I did Father and Scout with Bob Saget.
00:33:53In 1994, Brian is in a Disney movie called Blank Check.
00:33:56The hardest part was, after Blank Check, I was reaching a point where I was going to keep growing bigger and bigger.
00:34:05But at that point, my mom was ready to move.
00:34:10I was engaged to somebody, and he showed me Colorado.
00:34:16I talked to the kids about it.
00:34:19Do you want to move here?
00:34:21That kind of thing.
00:34:22So we all kind of decided together to do that.
00:34:29I didn't want to move.
00:34:30It was scary to move to a new town.
00:34:33It was just a very big change.
00:34:35He's obviously not going to be in entertainment any longer, at least not there.
00:34:40And he has been sort of extracted from what appears to be something that he enjoyed.
00:34:44He liked this environment. He had some social support here.
00:34:49Now, all of a sudden, he's going to be thrust only into the world of being 14, with no other outlets in a new part of the country.
00:34:57That's a lot.
00:34:58I only did one movie after that.
00:35:03We flew out for a movie, and they didn't like that his hair didn't look like it did in his old, bold cut.
00:35:11And the producers were annoyed about it.
00:35:14And Brian said, this is bullshit. I'm tired of doing this. I don't want to do it anymore.
00:35:18And that's the day he decided not to. Period.
00:35:22It was right around there I did a where are they now thing.
00:35:26VH1 came and shot at our house.
00:35:29I said the words, I don't really want to act anymore.
00:35:32I just wanted to go on living, I guess, a normal life.
00:35:35Yeah, that was a dumb thing to say.
00:35:38It was definitely a big issue between me and my mom.
00:35:41My mom put so much of her heart, time and energy into helping me build this career.
00:35:47It was very hard for her to hear that I didn't want to act anymore.
00:35:52But at the same time, she moved us, and I didn't want to fly back and forth anymore.
00:35:59And, you know, I'm not going to lie, if I talk to her to this day, it's, why don't you get into acting?
00:36:06That's never ended. It's never ended.
00:36:09And I've always said that to him. Like, you could go back any time.
00:36:12People ask, agents ask me frequently, would he ever come back?
00:36:17It's like, if he wants to, I guess he will. Call him up.
00:36:26At the Huleys for four years, and I was fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade.
00:36:30By the time I became a freshman in high school, I was no longer on the Huleys.
00:36:35After that, Sky High was the first movie.
00:36:37Sky High is this superhero, coming-of-age movie that Disney releases in 2005.
00:36:42DJ plays the sidekick of the main character.
00:36:45No, seriously. From now on, people mess with us at their own peril.
00:36:49So to do that, it was like, what? Okay, now I made it.
00:36:53When DJ played Ethan, there was a dance, and then he started, like, ticking, pop-locking.
00:36:59DJ really pop-locks. Like, he could really dance.
00:37:02And I don't even think that was in the script. Like, I think he just pulled it off.
00:37:06Yeah, so I was happy about Sky High. Very happy.
00:37:10But it definitely didn't feel like me.
00:37:14I got to play a nerd. Am I really a nerd in real life? Nah. Hell no.
00:37:18I don't really know how Hollywood seen me.
00:37:20I just knew what my agents would see me just on, like, Sky High type of stuff.
00:37:25At that time, that's what I was thinking about. Like, man, let me be more hood.
00:37:29Let me be more sexual. Let me be more desirable.
00:37:32I wanted to have more street roles. I wanted to have more roles that was more me.
00:37:36And when my agents wasn't sending me things of me, it was like...
00:37:46I just wouldn't even go to auditions because I'm not even feeling that no more.
00:37:49Like, I'm 18, I'm 17, and that acting is just not for me no more.
00:37:58A major issue with a child actor is eventually they become adults.
00:38:06At that point, I had already started eighth grade.
00:38:10And I found some friends.
00:38:13Started with drinking 40s and skateboarding around.
00:38:16Ditching class.
00:38:20It led to doing whatever drugs were put in front of me.
00:38:23And liking some more than others.
00:38:26And I ditched a lot of school.
00:38:28And I ate a lot of LSD.
00:38:30My mom knew about all this.
00:38:33Walk me through your recollections getting into drinking and when that started and how.
00:38:37Well, I don't really remember any of that happening.
00:38:40I honestly have never seen Brian drunk.
00:38:44So, when you say Wendell, I didn't see that.
00:38:49It definitely led to a lot of arguments.
00:38:52Why are you drinking already and skating?
00:38:55You could be acting and making money and being...
00:38:58Well, you moved me here to this little town and I live way up in the mountains now.
00:39:02This is what I do now.
00:39:04At that point, between getting some of my money and finding this group of friends and finding alcohol, I found this new hobby.
00:39:16And it grabbed ahold of me.
00:39:18He wasn't acting when he started using anything.
00:39:22So, if your whole fix is getting applause and you can't get applause anymore, you might go looking for something else.
00:39:31It plagues a lot of people in the industry.
00:39:36So, here's a liability of being a child star.
00:39:39Child actors face mood disturbances, not having their production world, that family that they came to know and rely on.
00:39:47Then start reaching to substances to feel that pain and to regulate those emotions.
00:39:52I found comfort in drinking because it was an escape from this reality of not really feeling like I fit in.
00:40:00After getting into drinking so much every day and all that stuff, it's led me to living on the street and DUIs all the time.
00:40:12In crazy places that you would never imagine being or seeing yourself.
00:40:23In my 20s, I was out and met a girl at a bar.
00:40:26We liked each other, but turns into a toxic situation.
00:40:32We were two crazy drunk punkers trying to outdo each other and be wasted all the time.
00:40:40It was almost a competition of who can be crazier and get drunk and do wild stuff.
00:40:48In 2007, Brian was living in Boulder, Colorado with his girlfriend.
00:40:57And one night, our drinking had got out of control.
00:41:01911, where's your emergency?
00:41:03Yes. My boyfriend won't let me leave the house.
00:41:07Oh, so he's been drinking this morning?
00:41:08Yeah, he's been drinking my eyes mostly.
00:41:126 p.m., his girlfriend reports that Brian woke her up by pouring an alcoholic beverage over her face.
00:41:19She jumped up and tried to run.
00:41:217 p.m.
00:41:230,5 p.m., his girlfriend went to the house.
00:41:25Super blurry.
00:41:27But I remember holding arms, grabbing a phone.
00:41:32I did one of the worst things you could do.
00:41:35There were the worst things you could do.
00:41:46I tried to block the door.
00:41:48Was like, I love you, you don't do this.
00:41:50And at that point, you think you're doing something to defuse it,
00:41:54but you're blocking the door.
00:41:56He stopped her and allegedly threw her on the ground multiple times.
00:42:00You caught my face.
00:42:02I didn't do anything.
00:42:03And during that call, Brian is heard in the background
00:42:05claiming that she attacked him with a knife.
00:42:08What did you cut his face with?
00:42:10I didn't do anything.
00:42:11Okay, how did his face get cut?
00:42:13I don't know.
00:42:15The girlfriend denies all these claims.
00:42:17Have they been out here before for this?
00:42:20This is his second assault for domestic violence.
00:42:23And asks the police to come to their home
00:42:26because this has happened multiple times before.
00:42:30Once the cops came, we were sitting outside on the ground,
00:42:36a little apart from each other,
00:42:38because we realized, you know, what was happening.
00:42:41Brian is arrested.
00:42:42He is charged with assault, second degree, and false imprisonment.
00:42:48Having that charge, being put in jail,
00:42:50what's all that like for you?
00:42:52So, yeah, I've seen articles that have seemed to completely twist the truth.
00:42:56And there's articles that say I poured alcohol in her eyes
00:43:00and threw her on her bed.
00:43:02And that's just completely untrue, not what happened, so.
00:43:07Brian Bonsall pled guilty to a third-degree assault
00:43:10and was sentenced to two years of probation.
00:43:13The condition, however, was that he had to remain sober
00:43:15and attend domestic violence classes.
00:43:21We both went to rehab and stayed sober for six months.
00:43:26And then, at that point, we realized that we weren't good for each other.
00:43:32And we broke up.
00:43:38Brian is not the only child actor to deal with serious addiction,
00:43:41eventually accused of domestic violence.
00:43:44You see it with Orlando Brown, too, after his big show ended.
00:43:51There was one great episode where we do a fantasy,
00:43:54where Orlando and Raven get married in the future.
00:43:59And Orlando had to play Raven's husband.
00:44:03Hey, this is the...
00:44:04And he was just so funny in it and so brilliant
00:44:07and able to project himself as an adult.
00:44:11Maybe it would have been nice if he had projected himself
00:44:13in real life as that kind of person,
00:44:16as a person who's loving and caring and responsible.
00:44:19We did 100 episodes and the show was wrapped.
00:44:24This is about maybe 2007.
00:44:28When a show ends and you have to re-enter the real world,
00:44:32the transition out is very difficult for kid actors.
00:44:41In 2007, a few months after That's So Raven ended,
00:44:44Orlando was arrested for a DUI.
00:44:49Then I started to hear more and more about him
00:44:52because he had been acting kind of erratically in public.
00:44:56Back in this bitch.
00:44:58The first incidents that bothers me is in 2014,
00:45:01where he makes unwanted sexual advance towards a woman,
00:45:04then plants himself in her driveway.
00:45:08This woman calls the police
00:45:09and he's overheard threatening to kill her.
00:45:12I'm still swimming, bitch!
00:45:15Allegedly makes threats against multiple family members.
00:45:19I'll kill you, your mama, your daughter, and everybody!
00:45:23Ma'am, he just said he was gonna kill my three-year-old daughter!
00:45:25He was charged with disturbing the peace and public intoxication.
00:45:29Eventually, a plea deal is made and he paid a fine,
00:45:32but it's just the tip of the iceberg.
00:45:34He thinks he's cute with his nose ring.
00:45:37I am cute with those, and we cute on camera.
00:45:39We should have that.
00:45:40When I first started dating Orlando, he was in his late 20s.
00:45:43If you don't not...
00:45:44That's So Raven's been off for years now.
00:45:45He always continues to live like he was a big star.
00:45:47That's what he's trying to portray.
00:45:48But you don't know everything he has
00:45:49until you really start getting to know him.
00:45:51So what happened was when Orlando landed That's So Raven, big checks, right?
00:46:04I love you!
00:46:05Remember, he's a miner.
00:46:06So he's spending all his bread on everything that a child would.
00:46:11Cars, jewelry like crazy.
00:46:13He had so many girlfriends.
00:46:16His mother begged against it.
00:46:18She forbade all that stuff.
00:46:20And because I'm Orlando Brown and I make all the money here,
00:46:24I'm doing what I want to do.
00:46:26And now you have somebody that felt grandiose and has a lot of money,
00:46:31and they don't have the same consequences as the rest of us.
00:46:35So he used that money up.
00:46:41When I met Orlando, he doesn't have a driver's license.
00:46:45I'm like, you don't live on your own?
00:46:47You don't have a car?
00:46:49Like, I literally found out he didn't have a place to live.
00:46:52What drew me to him is he is extremely talented.
00:46:55And I felt like at that time, he fell from grace.
00:46:59And I always feel like everybody deserves a chance.
00:47:02Finally, we moved in together.
00:47:04And one day, I noticed he was having a funky sleep schedule.
00:47:09I noticed he was sweating all the time.
00:47:12I noticed that he was always very on edge argumentative.
00:47:17I realized how much weight that he had lost and how bad he looked.
00:47:23And then I look and find this bag of crystals.
00:47:27And I'm looking like, is this cocaine?
00:47:30I don't know.
00:47:32Is this cocaine?
00:47:35Oh, babe.
00:47:36Oh, oh, those are my pills smashed up.
00:47:38That's why it looks like that.
00:47:39That's the best form of it.
00:47:40That's the...
00:47:41What do I know?
00:47:43I have never been put in front of these kind of things.
00:47:49I didn't really realize there was a drug use problem until this violence kind of gradually escalated.
00:48:00There's a video that goes viral every year of us fighting for real.
00:48:04And so he turns it into a show.
00:48:07I'm Orlando Brown.
00:48:08You're nobody.
00:48:09He would film me anytime.
00:48:11He's going on a tirade.
00:48:13You're broke as .
00:48:14You can't even buy me .
00:48:16Are you hearing what he's saying?
00:48:17He's saying I can't buy him anything.
00:48:19That I don't buy him things.
00:48:22And that makes me broke.
00:48:24He's in my house.
00:48:25So what you see in the video...
00:48:27Beat on me.
00:48:28Why you beating on me?
00:48:29Why you beating on me?
00:48:30Get off me.
00:48:31Stop beating me.
00:48:32Stop beating me.
00:48:33He's saying this, but I'm not hitting him.
00:48:36I'm wrestling and fighting with him for this phone.
00:48:39He is harassing me.
00:48:40He's becoming aggressive and violent.
00:48:41And here we are.
00:48:46I believe it was Martin Luther King weekend.
00:48:49We were arguing once again in the car.
00:48:52And it just turned ugly.
00:48:54We're arguing and fighting about everything.
00:48:57And he's saying crazy stuff at this point.
00:48:59I'm a Freemason.
00:49:01He's saying all these things I've never heard before.
00:49:03You're a what?
00:49:04Do you even know what that is?
00:49:07He's screaming at me at the top of his lungs.
00:49:10Thrilling his arms.
00:49:11You FNB.
00:49:12You don't know who I am.
00:49:13I'm Ernando Brown.
00:49:15You dumb.
00:49:17I'm driving.
00:49:18Man, this is me.
00:49:19And he's in my face.
00:49:24Right here.
00:49:25Right here.
00:49:26I said, okay.
00:49:27A little very loud on the surround on the car.
00:49:30Map me to the local and closest police department, which was Torrance.
00:49:35He heard it.
00:49:36You knew where we were going, and it didn't stop him from being a crazy.
00:49:41Pull into the police station.
00:49:43We don't even get out.
00:49:44He's still yelling in the car.
00:49:45Why are you yelling at me in front of the police station?
00:49:48I'm stoic.
00:49:50Hands like, Orlando, stop.
00:49:51Knock it off.
00:49:52We're here now.
00:49:53Knock it off.
00:49:54People are, I don't care.
00:49:55I don't give a F.
00:49:56They're watching.
00:49:57I'm Orlando Brown.
00:49:58They're supposed to watch.
00:49:59They're gonna watch.
00:50:00All of this within, I'd say 10 minutes of us being parked there.
00:50:04Before I knew it, I blinked, and my car was surrounded by cops.
00:50:12He refused to get out the goddamn car.
00:50:16So now here I am.
00:50:17I'm in a car surrounded by police with guns pointed at my car, pointed at me.
00:50:21They're telling him to put his hands up, and he's still screaming, talking trash.
00:50:25They come to the window.
00:50:27They ask him to give them his ID.
00:50:29He's prolonging it and dragging it out.
00:50:32Why you didn't ask her for her ID?
00:50:34Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:50:35He goes, sir, we got a complaint about you being aggressive and violent towards this woman.
00:50:39Where's your ID?
00:50:40Are you gonna give it to us, or are you gonna cooperate, or no?
00:50:43He reaches down.
00:50:46And I just couldn't believe it.
00:50:48I'm in my mind like, what are you doing?
00:50:51I watch him as I'm sitting here in my hands on the thing.
00:51:00I watch him reach down in his sock, pull out a meth pipe, and throw it under his seat.
00:51:06Cop didn't play that.
00:51:09He's seen him move an inch.
00:51:11They must have pulled that man up out my car so quick and so fast.
00:51:15That dang on Honda door was swinging.
00:51:18He fought to the point of multiple officers yanking him physically out the car and hog tying him on his belly,
00:51:25while the cop says, okay, he's apprehended now.
00:51:28Let's search the car.
00:51:31And they obviously find his pipe.
00:51:33They're like, we're taking him for sure, for possession.
00:51:36He's in the cop car.
00:51:37He goes, bang.
00:51:39They said that they found drugs in the car.
00:51:41Whose is it?
00:51:46Are you freaking kidding me?
00:51:50He's charged with domestic violence, obstruction of justice, and possession of a substance with intent to sell.
00:51:59From the incident in January, he ended up actually, the domestic got dropped.
00:52:03And although they dropped the domestic part of it, you still have possession.
00:52:09He served like three weeks.
00:52:11So he gets out of jail, and there was a period of time after the initial arrest that we were together.
00:52:21Things just don't get better.
00:52:22They don't.
00:52:23So I physically had to push him out of my house to get rid of him.
00:52:29With Orlando Brown, there's a lot of issues and deeper issues than we've been discussing thus far.
00:52:35A few months later, in September 2016, Orlando is arrested for breaking into his friend's restaurant.
00:52:41He pled to a lesser charge of trespassing and was sentenced to 45 days in jail.
00:52:47In 2018, he was arrested almost every other month for infractions that include burglary, possession of drugs, resisting a public officer, and domestic battery.
00:52:57In 2022, Orlando is staying with a friend of his, and he makes a TikTok video about how he's planning on making a firebomb inside the home.
00:53:07Paint thinner burns things down.
00:53:10He's really erratic. He seems really mentally ill.
00:53:17Okay, you want to talk to him?
00:53:18What's going on?
00:53:19One of Orlando's friends tries to go talk to him that Orlando is holding a knife, and he's threatening to kill him.
00:53:25I'm telling you right now, he's already pulled a hammer out on me. He's pulled a knife out on me.
00:53:30A lot of Orlando Brown's behavior and his crimes seem inexplicable and bizarre.
00:53:37You ever seen Major Payne?
00:53:38Yeah.
00:53:39That's him, the little kid?
00:53:41Oh, is that right?
00:53:42Yeah.
00:53:43I just keep thinking there's mania involved with Orlando.
00:53:46Hey, Dad.
00:53:48I want to caution everybody that I don't have direct access to Orlando, which, without examining him, I can't know with any certainty.
00:53:54But I do see features, much like if I saw a rash or if I saw a seizure, I could speculate about what I'm looking at and what the possible causes are.
00:54:06These episodes makes me wonder if there's either drug-induced or just underlying serious mental illness.
00:54:12And my concern is, serious mental illness comes on in late adolescence, and a lot of these child stars are having to work then.
00:54:21Mind you, if you're in the middle of a hit production, and you have an assessment that says, this kid's really in trouble, it needs a month of treatment somewhere, that's going to cost a lot of money to somebody.
00:54:30And it's often a problem. The biggest problem I get in treating celebrities is they go back to work too quick.
00:54:36The work tends to interfere with the ability to get effective treatment.
00:54:39It's interesting that there are so many males in this group, it occurs to me, because in my experience, young males, particularly around sort of kindergarten, early childhood age, if they're not, how do we say this without sounding too pejorative, but being knocked down, being challenged, they get narcissism.
00:54:58It's something that I suspect is true with Zachary Ty Bryant after Home Improvement.
00:55:04You always hear about the child actor that comes out all wild, and I've done all right.
00:55:08Home Improvement ended in 1999, Zachary was about 17 at the time.
00:55:13I always found him kind of awkward on Home Improvement, frankly, but I've looked at his performances and other things since, and he's good, which caught my attention.
00:55:21I remember seeing Zachary in a bit role in Fast and Furious. He was 25 by that point, but he's still playing a high schooler.
00:55:29But Zachary kind of became, unfortunately, like one of those tabloid pieces that kind of just gets thrown around all the time.
00:55:37He has multiple DUIs that accumulate across essentially 2007 to 2020, which is a sign that alcoholism is developing.
00:55:46By 2020, Zachary was married.
00:55:53Hey guys, one more time, we're here.
00:55:57And they have four kids.
00:56:01My connection to Zach was we met when I was producing a podcast.
00:56:06What's your name again? About like someone you recognize but can't quite put what they've been in.
00:56:10And he was going to be a guest for the show.
00:56:15One day, he told me to pick him up to do this podcast in an area in Newport Beach that is gate guarded and very wealthy.
00:56:23Probably one of the most wealthiest areas to live.
00:56:26I had no idea what Zach made. I could just only imagine what residuals for Home Improvement might have been.
00:56:30I just was like, this guy must be doing very well. Plus, his wife works in real estate.
00:56:36It's about 7 in the morning. I park in front, call him.
00:56:39Hey, I'm out front. Do you want me to come in? You just want to come out? What's best for you?
00:56:43And there was an eerie silence to the house.
00:56:46I'm like, there is no children. There's no sounds.
00:56:50There was kids' toys out front. The car was in the driveway.
00:56:54But nobody was home. Or it appeared nobody was home.
00:56:57I had this instinctual feeling that something bad had happened.
00:57:03It's like, is there some tragedy going on in the house?
00:57:13It was silent. And was calling him, texting him.
00:57:21Nothing.
00:57:22And all of a sudden, my phone is like, Zach called. He goes, I'm so sorry. Like, I'm just getting up now. Like, I'll be ready in five minutes.
00:57:32I said, are you okay? He goes, no, man. Carly, my wife, left me.
00:57:36I said, when? He goes, today. He was in the fight. She picked up the kids and they left.
00:57:40We heard that Zach was going through a rough time. So we decided to help, you know, get him involved in our neighborhood to live across the street from us.
00:57:50And I was just really excited to help him get on his feet again and be a support system for him.
00:57:57We became friends very fast.
00:58:00I did notice one time we were all sitting on our couch and he'd put on a doc that he'd helped produce.
00:58:07But it was about child trauma. And I just noticed Zach started breaking down and crying.
00:58:15And it was just so heartbreaking. And I looked at my husband and I said, hey, is he okay?
00:58:22And so he later pulled Zach aside and he's like, no, no, it was just one of my buddies that went through this.
00:58:27I didn't do this, but it's just heartbreaking. And my heart just broke because it's very tragic, but it almost seemed like he was talking about himself.
00:58:40I can just tell you that I would never confide in what Zach has shared with me about what he endured as a child.
00:58:49But I will say this, I have a huge empathy for him.
00:58:53He said his marriage had failed, but it was because he'd met a girl. She was the mistress who he had met in Oregon.
00:59:06The first time I had heard of Johnny, I thought she was a pretty girl, but I definitely felt it was a toxic relationship.
00:59:14I think maybe a month later, after his divorce, there was an incident with Johnny in Oregon.
00:59:20Johnny in Oregon.
00:59:26This is 911.
00:59:27Please, I need someone to come here now.
00:59:30There's a 911 call from Johnny.
00:59:32My face is slammed in the ground many times.
00:59:35Okay. Who is it that did this to you?
00:59:37My boyfriend, Zachary Ty Bryan.
00:59:39Despite this incident, in 2021, he got engaged to Johnny Faye Cartwright, and they never got married, but they ended up having three kids.
00:59:58But it doesn't really change anything.
01:00:03911, address of your emergency.
01:00:06In 2023, three years later, the police were called again to Johnny and Zachary's residence.
01:00:12Zachary Ty Bryan denies all these claims, and we hear this in the video.
01:00:30I literally got attacked, and I'm the guy that's going to jail.
01:00:33They're pathological liars.
01:00:35The reality is that she can't have me, and she's trying to put me in jail for it.
01:00:40I don't think I did anything wrong.
01:00:42She's the mother of my children, and I will never hurt her.
01:00:45She literally beat me up, and then I'm going to jail.
01:00:48I was really shocked.
01:00:55There was nothing in my history with the kid or what I knew about him that would suggest that that would happen.
01:01:02I think the stuff that happened with Zach in recent years had nothing to do with the television series.
01:01:09Something happened when this kid got older where he did not have the guidance and support that he needed.
01:01:16Whenever I hear about a kid in Trillica, where's mom and dad?
01:01:23I worked with Orlando, and there were problems going on in the home that we had no control over, that we didn't know about.
01:01:31With Orlando's family, from what I saw, I think his mom was kind of like a salmon swimming upstream.
01:01:40She didn't exactly know how to navigate the water and just was trying to manage things as best she could.
01:01:50Well, I think the lack of parental oversight or guidance would affect any kid in any career.
01:01:56Would you do anything differently?
01:02:03I don't know. Sometimes I wish we had never moved to Colorado.
01:02:10But as far as the industry, I might have told Brian that, you know, yeah, let's take a break and stuff, but I don't know.
01:02:23Like, I think about that a lot.
01:02:26When I look back on how he grew up and his dad not being there and then turning 18 and like, here's all this money, but nobody to tell you how to be responsible with it.
01:02:42I mean, how do you not fall into that pitfall? It's just, it's a gaping chasm.
01:02:51DJ Daniels was different than some of these other subjects we're looking at because DJ grows up in a lower income family and finds his way into an important television production, ostensibly to keep him out of the gang life.
01:03:06You don't see a lot of kids from lower socioeconomic status getting into production. D.L. Hughley really takes him under his wing and develops a close affection and attachment for him. So this is a second family for him.
01:03:21After the Hughleys, he had a rupture from that family that they came to know and rely on.
01:03:26So now he went from family of origin to this Hughley family to hanging out with family members that, as he saw, just have to be gang members. And that influenced him greatly.
01:03:41When I told him I was 18, I was into the streets. It's a sticky situation because my parents come from that. So how do you stop things that you really come from?
01:03:52So with that being said, they kept me away from it and they tried their hardest with acting. I just went against the grain.
01:04:05What happened that night, August 6th, 2011?
01:04:10At that time, I'm out in Stockton. We was at a club having a great time and talking to too many girls, I guess.
01:04:19And one of the girls happened to be the victim's girlfriend, I guess. And he didn't like how we were talking to her, of course.
01:04:30Honestly, I was being belligerent. And he came behind me, grabbed me. Bam!
01:04:37I guess I blacked out.
01:04:47I was assigned to the robbery homicide unit. It was 3 o'clock in the morning. I got a call from our dispatch.
01:04:54By the time I woke up, cops was here. And they're arresting me. And I don't know what the hell is going on.
01:05:03I'm just thinking like, yo, we got into a fight. And why are you arresting me for a fight? Like, this is normal.
01:05:10The moment they took me to actual jail is when they said, you're here for a murder.
01:05:17The officers were talking to the witnesses to identify as much detail as you can about what was happening prior to the altercation.
01:05:31The witnesses described that the person by the name of Dorjean Daniels, he goes by DJ.
01:05:41He had gone to the club with two other people. The three individuals were walking around trying to promote a fight.
01:05:50They wanted to get involved in trouble.
01:05:52One of the people in the group said they're Sawup or Sarup. And that was a blood-related call for other bloods.
01:06:03And then they got into a fight. And the victim had been stabbed and transported to a hospital where he died.
01:06:14His name was John Joseph Lewis. And everybody that we talked to referred to him just as JJ.
01:06:22He was 26 years old at the time that this happened.
01:06:25Mr. Daniels actually had been documented as a blood gang member in Compton several years before this had occurred.
01:06:35And based on the gang slogans, made this, in our view, a gang-related homicide.
01:06:43But the three people that are there, they're not dressed like gangsters and they're not really acting like gangsters.
01:06:49You would never pick them out as gangsters.
01:06:57Up until this point, DJ had a clean record.
01:07:01I hate to say this, but at that time, I was expecting it.
01:07:08Right. I hate to say it.
01:07:09That's just the way I was, that's the way my life was going.
01:07:13So when it happened like that, it was just like, all right, it happened.
01:07:18DJ was not very cooperative.
01:07:21He claimed that he didn't remember very much about what had happened.
01:07:26And he only knew that he had been jumped at some point when he was leaving the bar.
01:07:32It was, um, it was tough.
01:07:36It was tough.
01:07:38It was tough.
01:07:39I mean, my mom.
01:07:43That was tough.
01:07:45And moms came to see me through the glass window.
01:07:51I'll never forget.
01:07:52She tried to, she tried to unscrew the screws.
01:07:53Like, yeah.
01:07:56My mom was like, she hung up.
01:07:58She was like, nah, I gotta get my baby out of here.
01:08:00And, and, and it screws through the glass window.
01:08:02And my mom was, she was trying to, she was tough.
01:08:06And she was tough.
01:08:09And I, I remember just hanging a phone just leaving.
01:08:11Cause I, I didn't want to see my mom like that.
01:08:17Yeah, I, I didn't like that.
01:08:23It's my fault.
01:08:25I put myself in that situation.
01:08:26So shit.
01:08:28I should have did that to my moms.
01:08:29And that was my fault.
01:08:31Everybody was hurt of the situation and truly wish it just never happened.
01:08:43Turn killer.
01:08:44Like that just sound crazy.
01:08:45He ain't even been convicted.
01:08:46So what are we talking about?
01:08:47It was like, he was already tried in the public eye before court.
01:08:50So.
01:08:53I was going to court and the correctional officers, you know,
01:08:56they're going to direct you to court and they'll be like,
01:08:58Daniels.
01:08:59Do you know DL Hughley's here?
01:09:01Hey, Mr. Hughley this way, sir.
01:09:03Hey, there he is.
01:09:04DJ goes to trial for first degree murder.
01:09:06And his second family, DL Hughley, the man who had played his father when he was a kid,
01:09:12comes back to help him when he's in his hour of need and testifies as a character witness in the trial.
01:09:19It's touching that DL came back to help DJ, but that's who DL Hughley is.
01:09:24I felt esteemed, like honored that I haven't talked to my pops in so long and the fact that he's still my pops.
01:09:34And the fact that we still had that pop son relationship, because I didn't know we had that.
01:09:38DL Hughley, someone I've known for years, is a wonderful man and he had some affiliates with the Bloods early in his life and was able to point out that just because you're in a culture where these gangs reside doesn't mean you necessarily are a part of it or can't find a way out.
01:09:57So the fact that he actually came down, spoke for my behalf, let people know like, hey, bro, he's like this and he's like this and he's like this.
01:10:06He's not that guy that y'all trying to pin him out to be. Like, stop that .
01:10:11And Marcus McClymon, one of the people with Mr. Daniels, actually testified during the trial that he was the person responsible for the stabbing and gave a statement that exonerated Mr. Daniels as being involved.
01:10:27I was in jail for 17 months.
01:10:33When they popped my door and said, Daniels, you're going home.
01:10:37That was a sweet and sour situation.
01:10:42It was bittersweet.
01:10:44This is the life that I got to accept.
01:10:47I was half gangster and I wanted to be tough because how are you not going to be street when everybody around you is street?
01:10:55But I don't know how to change it.
01:11:00Deji's story makes me very, very sad and didn't have to go like this.
01:11:05The family's impulse, which was a good one, to give him something creative and something where he could make money and he could thrive in Hollywood.
01:11:13It was meant to be a solution, doing all the things we know are associated with good outcomes.
01:11:19And yet the rug was pulled out from under him abruptly and he was looking for another family to sort of anchor himself with and that ended up a family that was associated with gang life and he just drifted into it.
01:11:33But for others, the darkest times can be a wake-up call.
01:11:37It was at that point that I started playing music and playing shows.
01:11:48I was focused on playing in this band.
01:11:51I was with these other bands on tour.
01:11:55I ended up next to a girl and she just looked over me and said, oh, you're the real Brian Bonsal.
01:12:01And I said, what does that mean?
01:12:03And she said, well, I dated a guy for three months who was nice at first and she had said that he was using my name to coax her into coming over and meeting him.
01:12:18He had a bunch of my tattoos in the same places.
01:12:25And she went on to say he turned really abusive.
01:12:28It was the worst thing you want to hear.
01:12:38I met Brian in 2013.
01:12:41In some ways, he might have been a little bit what you would expect when you started dating a famous actor in that.
01:12:49No matter where we went, he ran into someone that he knew or someone that knew him.
01:12:54And everybody knew the kid from blank check had run ins with the law.
01:13:00But he said, I want you to be really careful hanging out in Boulder.
01:13:06There is a guy that introduces himself as me and really victimizes women.
01:13:12It causes me to worry about any woman in my life.
01:13:15It started escalating a lot. I started to hear more stories.
01:13:20A friend of mine was working at Coyote Ugly and she said her friend that works there dated him too.
01:13:28And that she was locked in a room and forced to watch porn while he did heroin.
01:13:34It seemed that someone had adopted Brian's identity.
01:13:40He presents himself as the former child star from Family Ties and he actually gets tattoos identical to Brian's.
01:13:48In order to start his reign of terror on women.
01:13:51I was trying to figure out who this was.
01:13:57I went to the police department in Boulder and I filed a police report.
01:14:04And he was like, it is not illegal to tell somebody or someone else to have sex with them.
01:14:12That's what he said straight up.
01:14:13Literally, the response I got was, why don't you go handle this yourself?
01:14:19So I left there with nothing but his business card and an inactive case number.
01:14:26When Brian first told me about it, like he was practically crying.
01:14:30Like he was really, really upset.
01:14:32This cop, he did not take me seriously at all.
01:14:35And maybe that's because I was borderline, you know, the town drunk at a time.
01:14:40Not too long into our relationship, I started to hear from several girls who thought they were raped by Brian Bonsall.
01:14:54We were hearing from girls in Toledo, hearing from girls in the south.
01:15:00So we knew he moved around.
01:15:02We got in touch with the FBI.
01:15:04We learned that there was a woman in Kentucky who was sexually assaulted by a male who identified himself as Brian Bonsall.
01:15:15She then reported that to police.
01:15:18I looked up Brian Bonsall and learned that he was Andy Keaton on Family Ties.
01:15:24I used to watch that television show all the time.
01:15:26I was aware that he also sent out messages on social media saying, this is not me.
01:15:35Evidence was taken and put into CODIS and it matched a man by the name of Nathan Lobey.
01:15:45I was like, I remember meeting him.
01:15:47I remember his crazy eyes.
01:15:52I met him in 2004 in jail when I was in there for my second DUI.
01:15:57I was there for a couple or a few nights or whatever.
01:16:00And I guess he just got really obsessed with me right off the bat.
01:16:06He was arrested in Kentucky.
01:16:08And then we discovered that Nathan Lobey was really a serial rapist.
01:16:16They connected him to over 40 cases.
01:16:19But eventually, you know, he was convicted of seven and he was sentenced to 274 years.
01:16:29So it's really hard to tell all that story.
01:16:32For one, it's hard to like, not cry.
01:16:34There's definitely a feeling of guilt.
01:16:39It's so hard to explain.
01:16:40These, those girls, they wanted to go on a date with me.
01:16:45Because I was a child actor.
01:16:47It even clicked in my head that I had met this person.
01:16:50Because some of the mistakes I made.
01:16:55Brian, he's skating along the bottom for a long time.
01:16:58And so he's had some pretty phenomenal consequences and he's still not getting sober.
01:17:04It was also, at this point, I've lost everything I loved overnight.
01:17:13It was the very end of January in 2016.
01:17:17We had spent the weekend drinking.
01:17:21I stayed out really late.
01:17:23I hung out with a bunch of friends and didn't really go home that night.
01:17:26And finally, he texts, I need you to come.
01:17:31Something's really wrong.
01:17:34When she picked me up where I was at, my face was numb.
01:17:37My hands and feet were numb.
01:17:38I was severely dehydrated.
01:17:40I was just gonna die, I feel like.
01:17:42So we went to the hospital.
01:17:47Where they obviously gave us pamphlets on addiction.
01:17:51Had real serious talks with us about where our lives were heading.
01:17:55And I took him to the car once he was released.
01:18:03And I said, this is really it.
01:18:06If I take you home right now, you're promising me one thing.
01:18:11If you're gonna drink or use anything again, you're just leaving.
01:18:15I don't want to hear about it.
01:18:17I don't want to hear from you again.
01:18:19Just take your shit and go.
01:18:23I really got to that point after 24 years where it clicked for me.
01:18:30My drinking led to bad things.
01:18:33So we both quit drinking after that night.
01:18:45And it was 24 crazy, sometimes fun, sometimes horrible, wild years.
01:18:52You know, looking back, I had that other side that I think every other child actor probably goes through.
01:18:57Being on the set.
01:18:59There's a lot of rules.
01:19:00As I got older, I liked the no rules.
01:19:04I liked drinking and being wild.
01:19:07And it, you know, you're your own worst enemy.
01:19:12Brian gets sober and reports having sustained sobriety since then.
01:19:17We were married 2017 on October 21st, which was the anniversary of when we started dating.
01:19:25And then a few years later, we were gonna go get a tattoo.
01:19:30Courtney said, well, I should probably do a pregnancy test before we go get tattooed, just in case or whatever.
01:19:36And I got home and I took it.
01:19:38And I'm yelling for Brian.
01:19:40And I'm like, can you come here?
01:19:42And he goes, why?
01:19:44And I said, get your house in here now.
01:19:48So he comes in and I'm like, here you go, look at that.
01:19:52And that's how we found out that we were pregnant.
01:19:55When Oliver was born, I knew right then, immediately, this kid is a tiny version of his dad.
01:20:05I'm very grateful for where I'm at. I'm very grateful for my beautiful wife and my kid.
01:20:16And I'm super stoked to be playing in one of my favorite bands that I was a fan of for like 20 years, the Ataris.
01:20:23Going on nine years without any booths, so.
01:20:32Congratulations.
01:20:33Well, thank you.
01:20:35Most of the child performers that are now successful as an adult, you don't know were child performers.
01:20:42Because that was one career and they had another career as an adult, where they're competent and capable and talented.
01:20:50And that's hard to do.
01:20:52But when it comes to child actors, I'm often asked, why do all these things happen to them?
01:20:58I don't think I did anything wrong.
01:21:18There are several pieces of responsibility when it comes to dealing with a child in Hollywood.
01:21:38The parents have to be totally above board, right?
01:21:41They have to keep that kid straight, keep that kid on narrow.
01:21:45The network also has to make sure that they don't create a monster.
01:21:49They have to make sure that the show production itself is not abusive to this child.
01:21:55You also have to make sure that this kid isn't working too much.
01:21:58They have to make sure he goes to school.
01:22:00When these networks hire these kids, their question in their head is, is this kid going to be good for the show?
01:22:06They are rarely thinking about whether the production is good for that kid.
01:22:11Yes, being a child star is stressful.
01:22:13Yes, it's not a good environment for children.
01:22:18And there's no chance for any sort of normal developmental cycle,
01:22:22if they're stuck in this environment with adults at all times.
01:22:27So let children be children.
01:22:28Oh, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, pop!
01:22:35One, two, three!
01:22:36Power Rangers has a dark history.
01:22:43Ran him through with the sword.
01:22:45He passed away from hanging himself.
01:22:48She was catapult out of the car.
01:22:51He's not a Power Ranger. He's evil.
01:22:53He's evil.
01:22:54He's evil.
01:23:08That's true.
01:23:09Dar Grant's honor.
01:23:12No one else.