Very few Disney Channel stars have been able to make it through early fame (or any fame) without a few bumps in the road. Unfortunately, most of these ‘bumps’ seem to be trouble with substance abuse and the law. Here are some former Disney Channel stars who faced real-life scandals and charges.
Adam Hicks
You may know Adam Hicks as the funny, energetic actor from Disney Channel projects like Zeke and Luther and Pair of Kings. But while he provided the comedic relief on screen, Hicks struggled with anxiety that pushed him to substance abuse at just age 13. Substance abuse escalated to a headline-making arrest, including a series of armed robberies that landed him in prison for almost four years. Thankfully, Hicks has put his addiction and illegal activities behind him.
David Henrie
David Henrie played Alex Russo’s goody two-shoes brother Justin on Wizards of Waverly Place, but off-screen he had his own headline-making moment. In 2018, Henrie was arrested at LAX after TSA officers found a loaded handgun in his carry-on bag. He later apologized, saying he unintentionally brought his legally owned, registered gun to the airport, and eventually pled no contest to one weapons charge. Henrie avoided jail time but received two years’ probation, community labor and a mandatory gun-safety course.
Lalaine Vergara-Paras
Lizzie McGuire was one of Disney’s biggest shows in the early 2000s, and Lalaine Vergara-Paras earned a massive following as Miranda Sanchez. She was a role model to plenty of young girls watching the show, but in 2007 she was arrested and later pled guilty to felony possession of methamphetamine. Lalaine reportedly entered a court-ordered meth-treatment program that allowed her to work toward having the charge expunged from her record.
Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan was the early-2000s “it girl,” with Disney’s Freaky Friday and teen classics like Mean Girls still living rent-free in pop culture. But her meteoric rise came with a very public fall: multiple DUI-related arrests starting in 2007, plus repeated probation violations and rehab stints. In 2011, she pled no contest to misdemeanor necklace theft, and in 2013 she pled no contest to misdemeanor reckless driving and lying to police over a 2012 crash on the Pacific Coast Highway. These days, Lohan appears to be in a far more stable place, focusing on acting work and her personal life.
Mitchel Musso
Mitchel Musso is another Disney alum whose off-screen life got messy around alcohol. In 2011, the Hannah Montana and Pair of Kings star was arrested for DUI in California and later pled no contest, with his role on Pair of Kings coming to an end soon after. In 2023, he was arrested in Texas on suspicion of public intoxication and theft under $100 after an incident at a hotel convenience area, along with several outstanding traffic warrants. The misdemeanor charges from that 2023 arrest were ultimately dismissed, and Musso did not serve significant jail time.
Orlando Brown
Most fans remember Orlando Brown as Eddie Thomas on That’s So Raven, but his life off-screen has been far more chaotic. Over the years, he’s been arrested multiple times on charges that have included marijuana and meth possession, domestic battery, resisting arrest, burglary-related offences and DUI-type cases. He’s also spoken openly about his mental health struggles and battles with addiction. After a 2016 incident outside a California police station and a string of arrests in 2018 and 2022, Brown has spent time in treatment programs and has said he’s trying to get his life back on track.
Ronni Hawk
Ronni Hawk starred alongside Ariana Greenblatt in the Disney Channel series Stuck in the Middle and seemed set for a bright Hollywood future. That narrative changed in 2020, when she was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of domestic abuse after a heated argument with her boyfriend. Prosecutors later charged her with misdemeanor domestic battery, assault with a deadly weapon and brandishing a knife, alleging that she grabbed a knife and pursued him into the parking lot during the dispute.
Shaun Weiss
Shaun Weiss, who played goalie Greg “Goldberg” Goldberg in Disney’s The Mighty Ducks movies, later went through a very public battle with addiction and homelessness. After years of struggling with heroin and meth, and personal losses including the death of his parents and a fading acting career, Weiss was arrested multiple times on charges like drug possession and theft. In January 2020, he was charged with residential burglary and being under the influence of meth, but most of the serious charges were ultimately dropped after he completed a court-ordered drug-treatment program. He’s since celebrated several years of sobriety and has slowly started working again.
Shia LaBeouf
Most of us first knew (and loved) Shia LaBeouf as the chaotic younger brother Louis on Disney Channel’s Even Stevens. In reality, his life off-screen was much darker. LaBeouf has said he was diagnosed with PTSD while in rehab and has openly talked about his struggles with alcohol and addiction. Over the years, he’s been arrested multiple times for things like DUI, disorderly conduct, public intoxication and obstruction after a string of drunken outbursts and confrontations with police. More recently, he faced a high-profile civil lawsuit from ex-partner FKA twigs, who accused him of sexual battery, assault and emotional abuse during their relationship. The case was settled in 2025, and while LaBeouf has broadly admitted to harming people in his life, he has not faced criminal sexual-battery charges.
Stoney Westmoreland
Former Disney actor Stoney Westmoreland, who played a grandfather on Andi Mack, was arrested in December 2018 in Utah after allegedly using a dating app to try to arrange sex with someone he believed was a 13-year-old boy — who was actually an undercover officer. He initially faced a federal enticement charge that carried a mandatory minimum 10-year sentence, but in 2022 he pled guilty to a lesser count of using interstate facilities to transmit information about a minor. Westmoreland was sentenced to two years in federal prison and ten years of supervised release.
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