Jaleel White has come a long way after years in the public eye as a child star.
The former “Family Matters” actor wrote a memoir called “Growing Up Urkel,” published by Simon and Schuster this month.
“Show business in general is not really a safe space for young people,” White told Us Weekly.
“Family Matters” was an ABC-TV sitcom about the Winslows, a working-class family in Chicago.
White, who played the Winslows’s awkward but brainy neighbor, Steve Urkel, was 12 years old when the show began in 1989 and 21 years old when it ended in 1998.
“The adults in the room are encouraging them to be stars, and child actors see these adults as an extension of their parental guardians and protectors,” said Nubia DuVall Wilson, TV producer, mental health advocate, and co-founder of Starfury Productions.
“Unfortunately, not every adult has their best interest in mind,” DuVall Wilson told The Epoch Times on Nov. 26.
Although White has matured into a 48-year-old man, he maintains ties to his breakout “Family Matters” Urkel persona. For example, White named his memoirs after Steve Urkel and even wore the character’s shoes on the book’s back cover.
“There’s so much to unpack there with why this cover is this cover,” White said. “It’s a nod to so many things.”
White was catapulted into superstardom as his bespectacled character became a cultural phenomenon that included an Urkel doll and the Urkel dance. His famous line on the show was, “Did I do that?”
As an adult, White went on to star in movies such as “The Preacher’s Son” in 2017, “The Choir Director” in 2018, “When Vows Break” in 2019, “The Greatest Inheritance” in 2022, and most recently in “Beyond the Likes.”
“Ironically, show business puts a high premium on staying young but you can’t let that get the best of you,” White told Us Weekly. “Because everybody has to grow up. Everybody has to mature.”
Child actors who co-starred in the 1990s hit show with White include Kellie Williams as Laura Winslow, Jaimee Foxworth as Judy Winslow, and Darius McCrary as Eddie Winslow.
Their parents, Harriette and Carl Winslow, were played by Jo Marie Payton and Reginald VelJohnson.
“I didn’t want to ever come off as a victim,” White said. “First of all, because I don’t feel like a victim. If anything, I feel like a product of ’90s values and those values have changed exponentially since then.”
Child stars of the past may be perceived as victims by some because of a proliferation of tragic stories many have shared as adults.
For example, “Diff’rent Strokes” child star Todd Bridges, now 59 years old, disclosed that he was molested by a publicist and family friend at 11 years old in his 2010 memoir “Killing Willis: From Diff’rent Strokes to the Mean Streets to the Life I Always Wanted.”
“Many child/teen stars from the ‘90s have been labeled as actors who struggle to maintain a flourishing acting career as adults,” DuVall Wilson added. “There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but in general, there are many examples of young stars committing suicide, having drug and alcohol addictions, and doing pornographic films.”
Bridges’s co-star Dana Plato, who played Kimberley Drummond, died from a prescription drug overdose in 1999 at 34 years old.
“We’ve learned more about the evils that come with child stardom and the challenges that our favorite stars have experienced,” Fandom Daily website and app co-founder Marie Goldstein Levitsky told The Epoch Times on Nov. 26.
“We’ve been exposed more to the negative stories than the positive stories of child stars, which has created a victim narrative.”
White grew up on the “Family Matters” set before the Coogan Law was expanded. Established in 1938, the law mandates that 15 percent of a child actor’s earnings be placed in a trust account.
The Coogan Law is named after Jackie Coogan, whose parents spent all of the millions of dollars he earned as a successful child actor in the early 1900s.
Under current California law, a child actor must secure an entertainment work permit before accepting paid work.
“When young people are rewarded for their youth-like beauty at such an impressionable age, there is a high probability of repercussions,” Goldstein Levitsky added. “It can produce shame in them as they age because they assume they no longer are valuable to the industry if they do not look young anymore, which is certainly not true.”
White did not respond to requests for comment.
