The late Gary Coleman, who rose to fame on the popular ’80s TV show “Diff’rent Strokes,” was at one point the highest-paid actor on TV, but in 1999 he declared bankruptcy.
“After a series of costly medical troubles and even costlier legal battles with his adoptive parents, the then 31-year-old claimed a $72,000 debt and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy,” Time Magazine reported. Just a decade earlier, the actor reportedly had a $7-million fortune. His downfall could be blamed, he said, “from me to accountants to my adoptive parents, to agents to lawyers and back to me again.”
