Celebrity

Teen Heartthrob Walked Away From Hollywood To Put Family First

Published on November 18, 2025

Hollywood’s young stars appear to have it all. People tend to romanticize their life with fame, wealth, and attractiveness. Everything seems so simple because of them! Therefore, it always comes as a shock when a teenage celebrity decides to give it all up.

The theme of the story we have for you today is similar as well. There is more to life than the silver screen, according to a young Hollywood actor who was adored by millions of women worldwide.

This concept is not new to the entertainment industry. To learn more about what transpired, continue reading.

After making a memorable cameo as a child actor on “Growing Pains,” he went on to become one of the most well-liked performers of the 1980s. Teen magazines frequently featured him on their covers. Even though he appeared to have it all, he was struggling with the realities of being a young Hollywood celebrity, and he didn’t find it particularly alluring.

When Kirk Cameron was younger, his goal was to become a doctor rather than an actor. His career took a completely different turn when his mother, encouraged by a friend, introduced her young son to acting, despite his initial goal of becoming a surgeon. Actress Candace Cameron Bure, his sister, has been performing since she was a young girl. Her performance on Full House is what made her most famous.

In reality, the buddy was the mother of fellow child actor Adam Rich. Rich’s performance in “Eight is Enough” made him well-known. She advises her buddy to try their luck with ads by taking her son to agencies. His mother reluctantly took the advise but it ended up going well for them as Cameron started looking minor roles. One of his first acting roles was in a McDonald’s commercial. Despite his distaste for acting, Cameron kept receiving offers.

“I was always annoyed having to brush my hair and tuck my shirt in to go drive an hour in traffic to audition,” he revealed later about his early days of stardom. Despite the fact that he himself was not enthusiastic about acting, he soon got his role as Mike Seaver in “Growing Pains,” and the rest was history.

However, he was questioning whether Hollywood was the right place for him. After that, he felt a call from his faith.

When he was growing up, his family was not religious. The actor said, “When I was growing up, we didn’t go to church.”

“If you had asked me, I would have said I would be in the category of an atheist at 16 years old, 17 years old,” he surprisingly revealed later.

“I think I caught my atheism—it was by contagion,” he shared, he was referring to his teachers who taught him science and other subjects and regarded religion as “just a fairy tale.”

The young boy’s relationship with faith was reexamined after a fortuitous experience.

He met a girl he liked, and she asked him to attend church with her and her family. “I’ll be honest. It wasn’t because I was interested in God. I was interested in the girl,” he later admitted in a conversation.

But the church visit transformed his life, and his Hollywood acquaintances could even see the effects.

The 17-year-old’s approach to his character in “Growing Pains” was influenced by his personal experience with his faith. His co-stars and the show’s creators were not blind to this shift.

The producers were concerned that the little boy’s newly discovered religious fervor would influence his attitude toward the show, which would then impact the show’s longevity.

“Is he getting into something that’s really gonna take him into Looney Town? And if it is, we need to stop that,” he recalled what the concerns surrounding him at the time had been..

“I was trying to take the moral high road. I wanted to please God genuinely, and I think sometimes that got misunderstood,” he says now. His priorities however had taken a major shift and people around him were concerned.

His heart slowly began to dislike his life in Hollywood. The actor later recalled, “The evil, the darkness, the twisted sickness of Hollywood has been going on for a long time.”

Since then, Brian Peck, his personal conversation coach from the program, has come under fire for his part in the mistreatment of young child stars in the business. In a recent crime-solving documentary, he was prominently portrayed as a perpetrator.

All of this supported Cameron’s earlier ideas that Hollywood was driven by power, pride, and ego. These insights are what led him to abandon his potential acting career in his youth.

He became more steadfast in his faith, believing this is what would protect him. “When that becomes your God, rather than the God who laid down His life on a cross 2,000 years ago, you’re in for a world of hurt,” he shared.

When he married his “Growing Pains” co-star Chelsea Noble, he was just 20 years old. Cameron had firmly left Hollywood in his past and the two started constructing their life together. Together, the couple has six children, four of whom were adopted.

He and his wife have a strong interest in adoption because she was adopted themselves. When their adopted children were old enough to comprehend everything, they always made sure they were aware of their origins and assisted them in reestablishing contact with their birth families.

In 2021, Cameron revealed his intention to leave not just Hollywood but California itself behind. He took to social media to share his decision. He said, “I asked on social media what states people recommend for a Californian looking to relocate, and the top responses were Tennessee, Florida, and Texas,” he posted on Facebook.

Cameron talked about how he desired a place with more “wholesome values” because he felt that California had become a more dangerous environment.

Three of his children also resided in Tennessee, so he relocated there. The family was able to spend more time together as a result. The family also appreciates Tennessee’s slower pace of life. Additionally, he liked the “healthy freedom mindset” that Tennessee gave them, which he believed was lacking in California.

Additionally, he believes that Tennessee serves as a “hub for Christian projects.” Being near family paid off greatly for Cameron when he became a grandfather in the summer of 2024. On social media, he announced the birth of his granddaughter, Maya Jeanne Noble Bower.

“Our hearts are filled to overflowing,” he wrote in his post. “Our beautiful baby girl just had a beautiful baby girl, and we can hardly wait to spend every minute with her and shower her with love.”

In addition to his new duty as a grandfather in real life, Cameron kept up his acting career. His film “Lifemark,” which emphasized the beauty of adoption and life, was released in 2022. Given that his wife has a personal background of being an adopted child and that four of his own children are adopted, the project was a particular passion of his.

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