Rags to Riches: 9 Celebrities Who Grew Up Poor But Made It Big

Shania Twain grew up as one of five children in a poverty-stricken home in Canada, with an abusive stepfather. The 58-year-old country queen is now worth $400 million, but she remembered often going to school hungry when there wasn’t money for groceries.

"It’s very hard to concentrate when your stomach is rumbling," she confessed. "I would certainly never have humiliated myself enough to reach out and ask … ‘Can I have that apple that you’re not going to eat?’ I didn’t have the courage to do that."

The 61-year-old movie star — who’s worth $200 million today — had a really tough childhood.

Her father left the family before she was even born, and Demi Moore lived in a trailer park with her mother and stepfather, who were both alcoholics. Her mother took her along to bars and made several suicide attempts, and Moore remembered digging the pills out of her mother’s mouth.

When she was 15, she was raped by a man who asked her how it felt to be "w----- out by her mother," who got $500, Moore revealed in her memoir, Inside Out.

Before her big break on Wizards of Waverly Place, Selena Gomez's life was hardly charmed. The "Wolves" singer’s mom had her at 16, and they struggled to make ends meet.

"I remember having a lot of macaroni and cheese, but my mom never made it seem like it was a big deal," said the 32-year-old, who’s now worth $800 million. "My mom gave up everything for me, had three jobs, supported me, sacrificed her life for me. I remember my mom would run out of gas all of the time, and we’d sit there and have to go through the car and get quarters and help her get gas."

Carrie Bradshaw may not have blinked at dropping $400 on fancy shoes but growing up in a family of eight kids in Ohio, the S-- and the City star couldn’t afford lunch.

"We were on welfare," said Sarah Jessica Parker, 59, now valued at $200 million. "There was no great way to hide it. We didn’t have electricity sometimes. We didn’t have Christmases sometimes, or we didn’t have birthdays sometimes, or the bill collectors came, or the phone company would call and say, ‘We’re shutting your phones off.'"

The 42-year-old singer said when she was a child, "We lived prepay check to prepay check. I was like, whatever I’m gonna do, I just don’t wanna have to worry [like] that. I always used to hate when people would be like, ‘Money doesn’t buy everything,’ when you are little and poor. Rich people say that, not poor people. I don’t know one poor person that’s going, ‘Money doesn’t buy happiness.’ It pays you to get out of eviction notices."

Kelly Clarkson doesn’t have to worry anymore, since she’s worth $50 million!

The California-born performer’s single mother struggled to support Cher and even temporarily left her in an orphanage when she was a toddler.

"[Growing up, I was] really ashamed of my clothes. I remember going to school with rubber bands around my shoes to keep my soles on," Cher, 78, said and added that she still felt "poor inside. It’s like the fat girl who loses 500 pounds but is always fat inside. I’m scared to death of being poor."

She doesn’t have to worry any time soon, Cher’s worth $360 million!

With 14 kids in her family, Celine Dion's childhood home was very crowded.

"I didn’t have a bedroom. Up the stairs, before going in the bedrooms, there was a little ramp. And my bed was there," recalled Celine, 56, whose youngest sibling slept in a dresser drawer as an infant.

"[It] was normal for us. We weren’t poor, but we never had money," said the singer, who’s now worth $550 million. "[But] we were safe and warm and taken care of. What else did we need?"

The 58-year-old star, who’s worth $25 million, grew up in a home that was infested with rats and often lacked gas or electricity.

"Although my childhood was filled with many happy memories, it was also spent in abject poverty," said Viola Davis. "I was one of the 17 million kids in this country who didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. And I did everything to get food. I’ve stolen for food. I jumped in huge garbage bins with maggots for food. I had befriended people in the neighborhood who I knew had mothers who cooked three meals a day for food, and I sacrificed a childhood for food and grew up in immense shame."

The fourth of 12 children, Dolly Parton grew up in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains with nothing. Her family’s two-room home had no electricity and no running water.

"We were real hillbillies," said the star, 78, whose farmer father paid the doctor who delivered her with a bag of oatmeal. "White trash, I am! [But] I’ve never been ashamed of my people no matter how poor or dirty we might have been. I’ve always loved being from where I am. I think my childhood made me everything I am today."

The actress/singer/songwriter is now worth $650 million.