Gary Coleman was paid $70,000 an episode as a teenager. In his 30s, he worked as a security guard. The people who had managed his money were his own parents. In the video below, Coleman says that even after the lawsuit, he still doesn't know where $18 million went. He was the star of Diff'rent Strokes. In the first season he got $1,500 an episode. His parents were his personal managers and, ABC News reported, took the biggest cut, 20%. California law said 25% of his income had to be set aside for his future. ABC reported that even that disappeared. "I kept getting told, don't spend so much," Coleman said. "Everybody wanted a piece of me." In 1989, at 21, he cut them off and sued his parents and his former business adviser. That same year, his mother asked a court to take control of his finances, saying he couldn't handle his own affairs. His father said he was not a bookkeeper: "All we did was sign documents and gave our approval." In 1993 a judge ruled that his parents and the adviser had skimmed some of his earnings and awarded him nearly $1.3 million. Six years later Coleman filed for bankruptcy. Did his parents rob him, or were they ordinary people in over their heads with money they never understood?

Bobby Brown was 14 when New Edition hit No. 1 with "Candy Girl." After their first tour, each of the five boys got a check for $1.87. The tour bus dropped them back off in the projects. In the video below, Ricky Bell says what they were told the money went to. They were teenagers from Boston. Maurice Starr found them at his talent show in 1982 and produced "Candy Girl." On weekends they played two or three New York clubs a night. The money went to expenses, they were told. Food, uniforms, flights. "And so we just believed whatever they told us," Ricky said. At school, everyone thought they were rich. His coat, hats and boots were stolen from his locker in the middle of winter. In late 1983 they fired Starr, accusing him of embezzlement. They sued him and won. Starr has always denied taking their money. His next group was New Kids on the Block. Was $1.87 what was left after expenses, or what was left after Maurice Starr?

LeAnn Rimes won a Grammy at 14. By 17, her lawyers said, two men had collected more than $8 million in royalties while she got about $3 million. One of them was her own father. In the video below, she explains why she sued him. The head of her record label takes his side. Wilbur Rimes managed her and produced her records. "Blue" came out when she was 13 and went six times platinum. In May 2000, LeAnn and her mother sued Wilbur and his co-manager, Lyle Walker. The suit said the two had taken more than $7 million of her income over five years and kept tens of thousands of dollars in cash in a safe on her tour bus. "I think the parents should be there to watch over their child as a parent, not as someone who makes money off of their kid," she told 20/20 in 2005. Wilbur's lawyer called the claims "completely false." Then Wilbur countersued his own daughter, saying she had been overspending. Mike Curb, who ran her label, said: "I always felt Lyle Walker and Wilbur Rimes were doing a very good job." Then: "When LeAnn was making $20 million, 20% was a lot more. You know, money changes people." Walker settled in 2001. LeAnn and her father settled in 2002, shortly before her wedding. "I just wanted my dad that coached my softball team back," she said years later. "I didn't want him to be my manager anymore." Did her father earn his cut, or take hers?

Dominique Moceanu won Olympic gold at 14 and earned $1 million. At 17, she had $1,500 in her pocket. Her father had put her money into a gym with her name on it. In the video below, she tells Dateline in 1998, days after she ran away from her parents and went into hiding. She was the youngest of the 1996 Magnificent Seven. After the Olympics came tours and paid appearances. She never saw a check. Asked if she might have earned as much as $4 million, she said: "Nobody ever told me." Since she was 14, she had been the family's only source of income, she says. Her parents put her earnings in a trust she couldn't touch until 35. She read about it in the newspaper. "There could be nothing in there at 35," she said. When she asked to start saving, she says her father told her: "Why do you need that? The gym is all your earnings." By her account, when she pushed, he told her she would have to pay for her own car and coach. Her father said he built the gym with her blessing. His lawyer said she only had to sit down at the kitchen table and ask. At 17 she sued to be declared an adult. Ten days after she left home, her parents dropped their fight and a judge granted it. Were her parents building her future, or spending it?

Corey Feldman, the kid from The Goonies and Stand By Me, made $1 million before he turned 15. To get free of his parents, he says, he had to pay his own father $40,000. It was all he had left. In the video below, he tells the story on The Howard Stern Show in 1997, with his father sitting a few feet away. He started working at 3. His parents managed his career. At 8, he told Stern, he lived in a $400,000 house in his name. His parents took out a second and a third mortgage on it, then lost it. At 15 he went to court to get emancipated. He needed his father's signature. "The only way my father, who loves me so much, would sign the papers to release me is if I paid him $40,000." Asked on the show if Corey had made millions as a child star, his father said: "I wouldn't say so." "I'm sorry, that's wrong," he said of the $40,000 story. He said he fought the emancipation only because "I was just concerned that he finished school." Feldman got his freedom. In his memoir, he wrote that he was 15, on his own and "flat broke." Did his father earn that $40,000, or did he sell his son his freedom?

The Blind Side grossed over $300 million and won Sandra Bullock an Oscar. The real Michael Oher says he never got paid for it. The family in the movie never adopted him. At 18, he says, he signed what he thought were adoption papers. It gave them control of his money for nearly 20 years. In the video below: the scene everyone remembers from the movie, and what Oher says really happened. He became a ward of the state at 10 and was homeless at 18 when the Tuohys took him in. Under the papers, he couldn't sign a contract on his own. The Tuohys could. His lawsuit says each Tuohy family member was promised $225,000 plus 2.5% of the movie's profits. The deal needed one signature: Oher's. "The first time I heard 'I love you,' it was Sean and Leigh Anne saying it," he told the New York Times. "You let your guard down, and then you get everything stripped from you." The Tuohys deny it. They say every family member got an equal share, Oher was paid over $138,000, and they still love him. In 2023 a judge ended the arrangement. She said she had never seen one used on someone who wasn't disabled: "I cannot believe it got done." Did the Tuohys save Michael Oher, or cash in on him?

John Fogerty wrote Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising and Fortunate Son. For 15 years, he wouldn't sing them in concert. His record label owned every one. Then it sued him for sounding too much like John Fogerty. He had to bring his guitar to court and play for the jury to prove he hadn't stolen his own song. In the video below, he plays both songs back to back. You be the jury. Fogerty signed with Fantasy Records before Creedence had a hit. He has said the contract came "before I had written any of the songs." The label's owner, Saul Zaentz, also sued him for $144 million. To get out of that contract, Fogerty gave up his royalty rights. In court, Fogerty's lawyer asked Zaentz if the case was a vendetta. His answer, as Fogerty tells it: "It's an answer to a vendetta." The jury sided with Fogerty. He was still left with $1.35 million in legal bills and had to fight for them all the way to the Supreme Court. Was it business, or was it personal?

Stan Lee created Spider-Man. At 95, he sued his own manager, saying a nurse had drawn his blood and it was sold in Las Vegas. Two months later, a judge had to protect him from a different manager. In the video below, 95-year-old Stan is told it's time for another speech. "I thought I was finished with that." According to TMZ, comics stamped with "Stan Lee's Solvent DNA Ink" went on sale in a Las Vegas store for $250 and $500. The store pulled them. In June 2018, a judge gave Stan a restraining order against Keya Morgan. It accused Morgan of taking advantage of his impaired hearing, vision and judgment. Days earlier, Stan had posted a video: "I have only one partner, only one person who does represent me, and that's Keya Morgan." Morgan was later charged with taking more than $200,000 from Stan's memorabilia sales. In 2022 the jury split 11 to 1 for acquittal and the charges were dismissed. Morgan said he loved Stan "like a father." Was anyone around Stan Lee protecting him, or was everyone cashing in?

In 1991, Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson was paying half a million dollars to renovate his house. He was living in a rented one. The man living in his house was his therapist. In the video below, ABC asks Brian how much he pays Dr. Eugene Landy. He won't say. His family hired Landy in 1983 to save him. Landy put him under 24-hour supervision. Asked if Landy saved his life, Brian said: "Absolutely. Yes, he did." Then the bills came in. $50,000 for vitamins. $25,000 for four days of Landy's expenses in Hawaii. At one point, ABC reported, his fees and charges ran well over $1 million a year. When Brian got a yellow Corvette for a Chevrolet commercial, Landy got one too. When Brian got an upright piano, Landy got a baby grand. Landy gave up his psychology license in a plea deal. He stayed on as Brian's "life manager" and business partner. A 1989 version of Brian's will left Landy 70%. His girlfriend and two daughters were left the rest. The daughters had three No. 1 hits as Wilson Phillips. In nine years, ABC said, they had been allowed one hour alone with their father each. Mike Love said Landy saw Brian as "the goose that laid the golden egg." The family went to court to get Landy out of his life. Brian opposed it. Did Landy save Brian Wilson's life, or take it over?

The IRS said Willie Nelson owed $16.7 million. His daughter said he probably didn't have $30,000. Agents took almost everything he owned, and his fans bought it back at auction. In the video below, he is asked how one man gets into so much trouble. "It sounds like I went to school to learn how to do that," Willie says. On November 9, 1990, agents froze his bank accounts and took his Texas ranch, his country club and his recording studio. His daughter got his guitar, Trigger, out of the house and shipped it to him in Hawaii. "As long as I got my guitar," he said, "I'll be fine." The debt went back to the 1980s, when his accountants at Price Waterhouse put his money into investments the government later declared illegal. "I think it's important that you trust someone to do these things for you," Willie says in the video. A farmers' group bought one of his ranches at auction just to sell it back to him. Friends offered benefit concerts. He turned them down: "It doesn't sit well with me to take charity." Instead he sold an album of just his voice and a guitar for $19.95 by phone, and the IRS took a cut. He sued Price Waterhouse for $45 million and paid off the rest. Was Willie Nelson the victim of the people he trusted with his money, or a man who never cared enough about money to watch it?

Whitney Houston was paying her father's bills. In 2002, he sued her for $100 million. From his hospital bed, he told reporters: "You pay me the money that you owe me." In the video below, he explains why he believed his daughter owed him. John Houston was 82. His company said it had helped negotiate her $100 million contract with Arista Records and helped get drug charges against her dropped. "Seven points is mine. And that's what she was supposed to give me," he said. "I told her what I wanted, and she agreed to it." "My dad was being influenced by people that were lying to him," Whitney told Oprah in 2009. "My father was sickly at the time. He was in the hospital. I was paying the bills." He died in February 2003. The lawsuit kept going without him until a judge threw it out in 2004. Oprah asked if she had forgiven him. "Absolutely," she said. "I love my dad." Was he a father who felt cheated by his own daughter, or a sick old man used by the people around him?

Gary Coleman was paid $70,000 an episode as a teenager. In his 30s, he worked as a security guard. The people who had managed his money were his own parents. In the video below, Coleman says that even after the lawsuit, he still doesn't know where $18 million went. He was the star of Diff'rent Strokes. In the first season he got $1,500 an episode. His parents were his personal managers and, ABC News reported, took the biggest cut, 20%. California law said 25% of his income had to be set aside for his future. ABC reported that even that disappeared. "I kept getting told, don't spend so much," Coleman said. "Everybody wanted a piece of me." In 1989, at 21, he cut them off and sued his parents and his former business adviser. That same year, his mother asked a court to take control of his finances, saying he couldn't handle his own affairs. His father said he was not a bookkeeper: "All we did was sign documents and gave our approval." In 1993 a judge ruled that his parents and the adviser had skimmed some of his earnings and awarded him nearly $1.3 million. Six years later Coleman filed for bankruptcy. Did his parents rob him, or were they ordinary people in over their heads with money they never understood?

Debbie Reynolds' husband gambled away all her money and left her his $10 million debt. The star of Singin' in the Rain ended up sleeping in her car. In the video below, she describes the day a country club doorman wouldn't let her use the payphone in front of her children. In 1960 she married shoe millionaire Harry Karl. By the time they divorced, she was broke. "Somehow in our marriage he lost all of his money gambling and all of my money gambling," she told Oprah in 2011. "He owed $10 million. So then I got to pay that off." When nobody would tell her where the money went, she flew to Spain to ask his closest friend. He told her about the gambling. Then about the women. She left Karl in 1972. He rented a Rolls Royce and a penthouse. She let him keep his $50,000 membership at the Hillcrest country club. Then her old rental car broke down outside Hillcrest, the club she had gone to for 13 years. The doorman said she wasn't allowed in. She asked if her daughter Carrie could use the phone. The answer was still no. Her first husband, Eddie Fisher, had left her for Elizabeth Taylor. She said Karl was worse: "It wasn't Elizabeth and Eddie." Was Harry Karl a con man, or a gambler who lost his own fortune along with hers?

Mickey Rooney made more than 300 films and died with $18,000. At 90, he took his own stepson to court over a locked fridge and an empty wallet. In the video below, Rooney testifies before the US Senate about what happened. For years his stepson, Chris Aber, had helped run his life and his finances. Rooney's side said more than $400,000 was missing and that he had no money for a Valentine's gift for his wife. Rooney told the senators: "My money was taken, misused." When he asked about it: "I was told that I couldn't have any information of my own." Aber denied everything. In 2013, he and his wife agreed to a $2.8 million judgment in Rooney's elder abuse lawsuit. But the money had been draining long before. Rooney married eight times, and by 1962 he had earned $12 million and filed for bankruptcy. Was Rooney robbed by his own family, or had his fortune been slipping away for decades?

Bernie Madoff confessed a $50 billion Ponzi scheme to his two sons. Less than 24 hours later, they turned him in. In the video below, his son Andrew and his wife Ruth describe that day. It was December 10, 2008. Madoff gathered his wife and both sons in his apartment and said: "I have a confession to make. I've been running a Ponzi scheme." His wife's first question was what a Ponzi scheme was. His son Mark stormed out. Andrew followed him. That evening, Bernie and Ruth went to the office Christmas party and stayed half an hour. The next morning, the FBI came to arrest him. Shortly after the arrest, Ruth asked Andrew to co-sign his father's $10 million bail bond. He refused: "here I had just turned my father in to the authorities a day before." Madoff was sentenced to 150 years. Asked if she would have turned him in herself, Ruth said: "I'd like to think I would have, but I couldn't say." Andrew's last word on his father: "I'll never forgive him for it, and I'll never speak to him again." Madoff fooled regulators and thousands of investors for decades. His sons ended it in a day. Were his sons heroes for turning in their own father, or were they protecting themselves?

Brooke Astor was worth nearly $200 million. At 104, her grandson said, she was sleeping on a couch that smelled of dog urine. The man running her money was her only son. In 2006 the grandson, Philip Marshall, took his own father to court. His petition said her nurses asked for money to buy nonskid socks so she wouldn't slip, and were refused. Her nightgowns were so worn that the nurses turned them inside out. She ate pureed peas and oatmeal. His father, Anthony Marshall, had fought at Iwo Jima and served as U.S. ambassador to Kenya. He had run his mother's money since 1977 and raised his own pay to about $1 million a year. Then prosecutors went through the accounts. In 2002 he had sold her favorite painting, a Childe Hassam she meant to leave to the Met, for $10 million and kept a $2 million commission. Philip came to the trial once, to testify against his father. He told ABC News: "There are people who probably would say, well, how did I do this to my father? Quite frankly, what I did was help my grandmother." In 2009, at 85, Anthony Marshall was found guilty of grand larceny and fraud. He went to prison at 89 and was out on medical parole two months later. Asked by the parole board if he had regrets, he said: "Well, regrets, yeah, naturally." He died in 2014. His will: "I have made no provisions here under for my sons... nor for their children." His wife, Charlene, got the $14.5 million he had inherited from his mother. Philip chose his grandmother over his father. His father chose his wife over his sons. Would you take your own father to court for your grandmother?

In 1973, the richest man in the world, J. Paul Getty, refused to pay a $17 million ransom for his kidnapped 16-year-old grandson. When he finally did pay, he paid only the part he could deduct from his taxes. Eight days after John Paul Getty III was taken in Rome, his mother sat in front of the cameras and asked the kidnappers to get back in touch. That interview is in the video below. She said the family was ready to negotiate. A reporter took it as ready to pay, and she stopped him: "No, I didn't say the family is ready to pay. I said that... the family is ready to negotiate." She chose those words for a reason. Getty had 13 other grandchildren, and his position was that paying for one would turn every one of them into a target. He held that line for months. Then the kidnappers cut off the boy's ear and mailed it to a newspaper with a lock of his hair. The demand dropped to $3.2 million. Getty agreed to put in $2.2 million, the most that was tax deductible, and lent the rest to his own son at 4% interest. Paul was released five months after he was taken. His mother suggested he call his grandfather to say thank you. Getty refused to come to the phone. His mother was ready to negotiate for her son. Getty negotiated down to what he could write off. Was he protecting 13 other grandchildren, or his tax bill?

Warren Buffett's only daughter asked him for a loan to redo her kitchen. He said no. Years later she still had trouble with it: "I thought I was asking for a loan. I was not asking him to give me the money." Susie Buffett grew up in Omaha on an allowance. She says the kids walked out the door the minute they got it and spent it at three different drugstores on candy and magazines. Then there was the slot machine. "Here, kids, put the money in the slot machine." Her father would open the back and take all his money back. She kept her paycheck money from her job in her room, and used to joke to her mother that she'd be "on the cover of People Magazine someday, homeless." In an interview for HBO's Becoming Warren Buffett, she was asked straight out if he'd been too tight-fisted. "No, I don't at all." Two minutes later: "Basically, I think he's been right." His rule, in a line he borrowed from Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham: leave the kids "enough so they could do anything, but not enough so they could do nothing." By his count, everything he, his wife and his kids ever spent of his money will be "quite a bit less than 1%" of what he made. In a later interview he gave a little ground: "My wife and kids would say I learned it too well there for a while." You can read it as a man worth billions turning down his own daughter's kitchen loan. You can also read it as three grown kids who each run a foundation and live normal lives, and a daughter who says he was right. Your daughter asks you for a loan for her kitchen. You have billions. Do you say no? She tells the story herself, then he explains the rule ↓

Warren Buffett's son was at Stanford when he got $90,000 of Berkshire stock. He left school and sold it to chase music. At today's price those shares would be worth about $460 million. Peter Buffett grew up in Omaha, went to public school, and says he didn't really know how rich his father was until his 20s, when Warren showed up "on some list somewhere." At Stanford he took every intro class he could find, looking for something that clicked. Nothing did. He even asked his father about going into investing. It didn't click either, and Warren never pushed. Then a letter arrived. The first line, as Peter remembers it: "Bonanza time has arrived." His grandfather had left the grandkids a farm. Warren sold it and turned it into Berkshire stock. Peter's share was 607 or 608 shares, worth $90,000. He moved to San Francisco and sold the stock slowly to pay rent and buy equipment. There was no safety net behind it: "I never expected a dime from my parents. So I knew if I went through that $90,000, I wasn't going to get another 90." He became a composer. Years later his father gave him a billion-dollar foundation to give away, not to keep: "he gave us a billion dollars, but it's not ours." His line on risk: "you don't want to be safe and sorry." Would you have sold the shares to chase what you love, or held them and stayed at Stanford? Peter tells the whole story himself in the video below.