Being a celebrity basically creates a "cool" factor -- because they're successful at something interesting, or because they themselves are interesting. Of course, that doesn't mean anything about their life experience, and many celebs didn't exactly start out feeling like the coolest kids around. Like anyone else, most stars have had awkward times in life, low self-esteem and sometimes even lonely moments. Here are 13 stars who weren't the cool kids pre-fame, but now they're laughing.
13 Chris Colfer
Chris Colfer had to put up with some annoying behavior growing up, which is probably what allowed him to relate to his character on Glee. After all, there are a lot of things that make up who we are but we can always choose what to do with how we feel about our past. He has said, “I was very tiny. I spent most of my time stuffed into lockers. Thank god for cell phones, or I’d still be in there.” Thankfully, things turned out pretty awesome for him.
12 Brittany Snow
The actress grew up bullied, but she chose to channel that into good. She founded Love is Louder, a foundation that encourages the use of social media for spreading good, as opposed to being such a breeding ground for negativity and super nasty comments. Seriously, it's hard to believe what people will actually write on celebs' Instagram posts. Brittany has said that she used to get cyber-bullied on AOL Instant Messenger back in the day.
11 Cameron Diaz
The Charlie's Angels star and recent purveyor of healthy living and eating has said she was a "dork" and a "total goon" back in her high school kids. She was super tall and thin and didn't feel like guys wanted to date her. They're probably pinching themselves today, right? She actually went to high school with Snoop Dogg and he has said that she was "fly and hip" and that "she ran with my homegirls, all my little cheerleading homegirls. She was in [their] little crew.” Hmm... We're not really sure which version to believe (maybe both?) but either way, we can safely say that things definitely improved for Cameron.
10 Mischa Barton
The actress might have played super stylish, super cool Marissa Cooper on The O.C. But her real life high school days? Not as glam and scandalous. Not that you necessarily want Marissa's life, either. She has said she wasn't popular at all and was super unsure of herself, plus she didn't have a ton of cash to buy stylish clothes.
9 Christina Hendricks
The Mad Men star seems confident and beautiful now, but it doesn't sound like her younger years were quite so lovely. She has called her adolescent period "the worst high school experience ever." She even has shared that she dyed her hair purple and was part of the drama crowd because she didn't feel the love from other cliques at the school. Looks like she's laughing now.
8 Malin Akerman
Some people take more time to come into their own, and Malin waited until she was in her thirties to have children for that very reason. She has shared that it was a good time for her to start raising a family because her twenties was a necessary time for her to learn how to be an adult. She wanted to wait until she knew she could be a solid, amazing mother. That likely comes from the fact that she was unpopular when she was a teenager, didn't date at all, and was generally kind of nerdy.
7 Steven Spielberg
The director is a pretty awesome example of a nerd making it big. A band nerd, to be specific: he played the clarinet. He has admitted that as a kid, he was super sensitive to things that he saw on TV. Once, he watched a documentary about snakes and cried for hours. It seemed he conquered that fear quite nicely.
6 Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift is about as known for her "girl squad" as anything else these days, and it's become obvious that the girl has a lot of friends. But it was alone time that got her where she is today. She has credited the fact that she spent tons of time by herself back in school with staring to write songs. She was never cool and was never even invited to parties, which again seems completely ridiculous now.
5 Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba moved a lot as a kid and also had a lot of health problems. She suffered partially collapsed lungs twice which led to pneumonia four to five times a year, as well as tonsil and appendix issues in her school years. She actually ate her lunch in a pretty unique place: the nurses' office. She wanted to avoid the other girls in her grade as much as possible. She also didn't have a ton of money or cool clothes, like Mischa Barton.
4 Sandra Bullock
When Sandra Bullock was in school, her family did some traveling out of the country that made it hard for her to assimilate as a student: “I came back in the middle of puberty and I was not well liked… I call it ass-kicking, they now call it bullying. But I had those horrible years where I could just not get a leg up.”
3 Jennifer Garner
Jennifer Garner grew up to be a beautiful successful woman and for a time was even married to one of the biggest movies stars around. But growing up she didn't have quite the same life. She calls herself a nerd, like many of the others on this list, and was even in the school band. She has some literary, nerdy aspirations too: she has shared, "If you’d asked me what I wanted to be, I would have said something like a librarian.”
2 Anna Kendrick
Anna Kendrick has admitted that she wasn't real popular with the boys in high school, and she is actually still dealing with people picking apart her looks. In one interview she said, "The most common thing that I get is, 'Am I the only one who doesn't think that Anna Kendrick is pretty?' And you're like, 'No, you're not the only one. Arguably, all of the boys in my high school agree with you,'"
1 Zac Efron
Zac Efron seems to be pretty universally accepted as a hot guy, but it sounds like he had to grow into that a bit. Again, he says he was a geek in high school. Naturally, he was a musical theatre geek... and that definitely worked out well for him, since his role in High School Musical made him the star that he is now.
sources: People.com
