Disney child star says he was left broke after blowing all his money on 'mostly weed'
A former Disney Channel star has claimed that he blew through most of his earnings from being on one of their shows on marijuana.
Actor and comedian Joey Bragg starred as Joey Rooney in Disney's Liv and Maddie between 2013 and 2017 but he has since said that pretty much all of the money he made from the show is gone now.
Speaking on the Cash Cuties podcast, the former Disney Channel star said he'd actually said no to the House of Mouse when first offered the role as he wanted to concentrate on his comedy.
However, Bragg changed his mind after saying no 'like three or four times' as they 'kept upping the amount of money that they were gonna pay me'.
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When he was 17 he moved to Los Angeles to film the show but 10 years later the earnings from being a Disney star are all gone and Bragg explained exactly where all that money went.
Noting that child actors do get paid but since they're underage the money goes to their parents, Bragg gave details on 15 percent of the funds going into a separate account just for him as part of California state law.
He said his parents 'didn't pay themselves anything' unlike the parents of some previous child actors who made certain legal protections necessary, and that on his 18th birthday the 15 percent of his earnings he was allowed to receive as a lump sum amounted to $70,000.
While it was a pretty good payday, Bragg said that he found ways to spend the money until there was none left.
He explained: "I moved in with my girlfriend, I went to Coachella every year, the VIP Outside Lands, it was stuff like that. I wasn't buying jet skis or boats or anything, I mean I didn't necessarily have enough to buy a jet ski or a boat, but I definitely got used to the lifestyle."
Bragg said that he once paid someone $5,000 to guide him around Disney World for the day, with that fee buying him five hours of their time and every hour afterwards costing him $2,000.
However, the now 27-year-old told the podcast that while he'd splashed the cash on lots of things the main drag on his funds had been 'mostly weed', admitting he 'spent most of it on weed'.
Bragg told Cash Cuties that having so much money at a young age 'f**ked me up' in terms of dealing with finances.
He also said that Disney had 'f**ked over' their actors by rebooting shows, claiming that they signed deals where 'the first three seasons of a show you get paid 88 percent of scale, so it’s 88 percent of minimum wage'.
Bragg claimed that after three seasons the deal said they'd move to 100 percent but Disney would instead reboot the show into another format after three seasons.
Liv and Maddie was rebooted into Liv and Maddie: Cali Style for a fourth and final season, while other Disney Channel shows such as The Suite Life of Zack and Cody also ended up getting rebooted after three seasons.
UNILAD has contacted Disney for comment.
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Money
Joe Harker