Christina Aguilera's career in showbiz may date back to her stint on The Mickey Mouse Club, but childhood wasn't all fairy dust and popcorn balls for The Voice star. Aguilera and her mother have both accused her father, Fausto Aguilera, of physical and emotional abuse that lasted until her parents split when the singer was seven years old.
Today, Xtina remains estranged from her controlling, allegedly wife-beatin' dad, and who could blame her? But the abuse suffered at his hands may have helped to forge a more dedicated performer. In 2000, the singer told Rolling Stone that "there was so much domestic violence going on when I grew up with my dad traveling in the military. I think the reason that my drive was so strong and I was so passionate about music was because I grew up in an environment of domestic violence."
6. MICKEY KRAMER (JOEY)
As the drummer for Aerosmith, one of the most successful rock and roll bands of all time, Joey Kramer had it all: The fame, the money, the cars and all the women he could handle. But even at the height of the band's comeback success, Kramer couldn't enjoy any of it. He was filled with crippling anxiety and depression stemming from the abuse he suffered as a child.
Kramer released a memoir last year, Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock Bottom at the Top, that detailed his inability to ever please his father, who piled verbal and physical abuse on to his son beginning at a very young age. The drummer internalized the abuse, recreating the toxic relationship with his father in both his marriage and with Aerosmith taskmaster Steven Tyler. For years, Kramer coped with drugs and alcohol before finally getting clean and addressing the trauma in the late '90s.
5. HANK HARRISON (COURTNEY LOVE)
Given Courtney Love's crazed behavior over the past 20 years, it's not super-hard to believe that her childhood was rather fucked. Love was placed in her mother's custody after her parents' divorce after her father, Grateful Dead associate Hank Harrison, fed her LSD at age four.
Draw your own conclusions as to what effect the drug had, but Courtney's teens were mostly spent in foster homes and correctional facilities after her mom ditched her for New Zealand. At 17, she was legally emancipated from her neglectful parents.
Their estrangement didn't stop Harrison from claiming Courtney was complicit in Kurt Cobain's murder in his book, Beyond Nirvana: The Legacy of Kurt Cobain, despite never meeting his son-in-law.
