Having spent almost three decades in his professional career at barely 30 years old is something that very few can boast of having achieved, but Cole Sprouse is one of them. The actor began with his twin brother Dylan in show business when he was only eight months old and, since then, they have become the reference twins for American cinema and television.
Their blonde hair, blue eyes, and angelic face made them the ideal candidates for roles in such well-known series as Friends, where Cole played Ben Geller, Ross’s eldest son; or Julian McGrath, the child that Adam Sandler adopts in A Great Dad (1999). Some roles that catapulted them to stardom, leading them to sign for Disney and become benchmarks in the Mickey Mouse empire at the age of 12, with their own series, Hotel Dulce Hotel: The Adventures of Zack and Cody.
But what few know is that of all that money they managed to earn in the first decade of their life, nothing remains, because their mother, addicted to drugs and alcohol, spent it all.
It has been Cole himself who has revealed it during an interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast, where he explained what happened to all the money that both his brother and he earned when they were just children and the main source of income for their parents, Matthew Sprouse and Melanie Wright.
Both separated when the twins were barely one year old, precisely because of their artistic careers. Her father wanted the children to live a normal childhood, while her mother preferred to take advantage of that talent and the love that the camera seemed to have for the then babies.
“My mother put us in acting when we were only eight months old because we needed money,” Cole revealed a few years ago, ensuring that neither of them had joined the performance out of passion.
The actor confesses that his mother was very “irresponsible” financially due to her mental health problems and addictions, which would have led her to spend all the money they earned prior to her contract with Disney. He got to such a point that he lost custody of the twins when they were 10 years old, and they forcibly went to live with his father.
“My brother and I went through a long legal battle when we were about 10 years old, and they gave custody to my father,” she says, adding that her father wanted them to live a “normal childhood.”
“We had lost everything on Friends and Great Dad,” he says, before adding that he doesn’t blame his mother, but his problems: “My mother was wonderful and very artistic, but she was the most irresponsible person you can imagine. with money. I think it was the result of some kind of mixture of addiction and mental instability, and that’s probably the biggest hurt of my life.”
After much consideration, Matthew Sprouse ended up seeing the talent in his children, and agreed that they continue to pursue show business. Of course, with restrictions and trying to train and try to develop their talents in the things they really liked at the same time.
Two years later, his contract with Disney would arrive, something that Cole remembers as a “lifeline”: “We were good. It gave us stability, consistency and a routine, something that my brother and I really needed at that time.”
Still, he has no regrets: “My parents didn’t have much, and now I have a stable financial life. It’s the result of working 30 years and exchanging it for my childhood, but I don’t regret it. Given a choice, I probably would.” again”.