The school of life! Plenty of celebrities didn’t finish high school, but they still became super successful — and made some serious cash along the way.
Jennifer Lawrence is one of Hollywood’s most famous dropouts, quitting her formal education while she was still in middle school. “It’s hard to explain. It’s just an overwhelming feeling of, ‘I get this. This is what I was meant to do,’” she said of acting during a 60 Minutes interview in February 2018. “And to get people to try to understand that when you’re 14 years old, wanting to drop out of school and do this, and your parents are just like, ‘You’re out of your mind.’”
It may have seemed like a bad decision at the time, but the move quickly paid off. In 2013, she became the second-youngest Best Actress winner at the Oscars, and in 2015 and 2016, Forbes named her the world’s highest-paid actress.
Ryan Gosling stayed in school until he was 17, but he struggled to keep his grades up until his mom started tutoring him at home. “It really did turn things about for me,” the Drive actor told British GQ in January 2022, adding that his mother later became a professional teacher. “She was the perfect person to ask for help when we needed it.”
While the Mickey Mouse Club alum was only homeschooled for a year, he later left high school after landing a role in the short-lived TV series Young Hercules. The teen adventure show only lasted one season, but within five years, Gosling landed the role that changed his life: Noah Calhoun in The Notebook. He’s since racked up two Oscar nominations, four Screen Actors Guild Award nods and one Golden Globe win. (He also shares an MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss with ex-girlfriend and The Notebook costar Rachel McAdams.)
Kristen Stewart left school at age 13 after her film career started taking off, deciding instead to finish her education at home. She eventually did complete high school on her own — and she held a mock graduation ceremony on the set of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.
“I had just finished high school myself the week before, so I told the crew, ‘Hey, just so you know, I’m actually graduating right now, and I’m not going to have another ceremony,'” she told Interview magazine in September 2009. “So I took a mock picture with an extra. I literally asked the actor to come back and shake my hand and hand me the diploma while I was dressed in a cap and gown.”
Keep scrolling to see which celebrities didn’t finish high school.
"School became genuinely uncomfortable," the Spencer star told British GQ in November 2011, adding that it was hard to keep up with homework while she bouncing around between movie sets. "I was feeling a little self-conscious about the acting thing with my peers, but also my teachers became a problem." Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
The Departed actor dropped out of his Boston high school in ninth grade, but he finished his GED in 2013 — 25 years after he left his formal education behind. Matt Baron/Shutterstock
The Brazil native left school at age 14 to pursue her modeling career. The move paid off, because she eventually became one of the highest paid models in the world. Gregory Pace/Shutterstock
The Oscar winner dropped out in his junior year of high school, but he later earned his GED. Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock
The Edward Scissorhands actor dropped out of school at age 15, but it wasn't because he wanted to be actor. Instead, he planned on pursuing a career as a rock musician. He ultimately became known for his work on the big screen, but he also recorded two albums with his band, Hollywood Vampires. BabiradPicture/Shutterstock
The 30 Rock alum credited leaving school for his later success as a comedian. "I’m glad I dropped out of high school, man," he told the New York Post in April 2010. "I wouldn’t be where I’m at. I would have had a net. I’m glad I didn’t have anything to fall back on, man, because that made me go for my dreams that much harder." Vince Bucci/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
The Grammy winner was an aspiring physiotherapist when he decided to drop out to pursue his music career. After One Direction took off, he never went back. Jordan Strauss/AP/Shutterstock
"I left school at 16 and I went to work in a delicatessen to save money to get the train to London to go on auditions," the Oscar winner said during a December 2017 appearance on the The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, adding that her accent often makes people think she's far more educated than she is. John Salangsang/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
The Oscar winner convinced her parents to let her drop out in ninth grade after she showed them a PowerPoint presentation about why she should be allowed to act full time. "It’s nuts that they agreed to it,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in January 2017. “I don’t condone it. Everybody should go through high school and graduate.” ADAM S DAVIS/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Gosling left school at 17 to film the TV show Young Hercules after spending one year being homeschooled by his mother. Though his time with her as a tutor was brief, he later told The Guardian that year gave him "a sense of autonomy" that he "never really lost." Manuel Romano/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
The Iron Man star dropped out of California's Santa Monica High School when he was 16 so he could pursue his acting career full time. Before he left, his classmates included Sean Penn, Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe. Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
The Grammy winner left school at age 16 after she landed a record deal. In addition to releasing eight hit albums, the Barbados native has since acted in films and founded a beauty company, lingerie line and fashion house. In August 2021, Forbes declared that she is officially a billionaire. Hannah Young/Shutterstock
While the Disney alum has two Grammy nominations, one thing they do not have is a high school diploma. The “Sorry Not Sorry” singer revealed in June 2019 that they “dropped out of middle school” when replying to former Big Time Rush member Logan Henderson’s Instagram post, which was captioned: “Comment your best high school yearbook quote.” Courtesy of Demi Lovato/Instagram
Though Perry earned her GED, she isn’t satisfied with the level of education she received before dropping out at 15. She told Yahoo in 2014: “I’m kind of bummed at this stage that I didn’t have a great education. … I was being pulled out of school even in the middle of school and sometimes being homeschooled. Sometimes we were sent to these really half-Christian, half-education, I-don’t-know-what-they-were schools.” The pop star added that she’s “learned to educate myself at this stage.” Anthony Harvey/Getty Images
Cowell left school at 16, and he’s confident enough in his decision that he has said his son could do the same if he wanted. “Leave at 16 if you want to work, 100 percent I would encourage him,” the X Factor judge told BBC Radio 2 in 2016. “I don’t understand why you would want to torture someone to be somewhere they don’t want to be but actually want to go out into the real world and make a living.” Trae Patton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
The Hunger Games actress revealed to 60 Minutes in 2018 that she dropped out of middle school to become an actress. “I dropped out of middle school. I don’t technically have a GED or a diploma,” the star said. “I am self-educated.” When asked if she regretted the decision, the Oscar winner responded, “No. I really don’t. I wanted to forge my own path. I found what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want anything getting in the way of it.” Samir Hussein/WireImage.com
Rogen has spoken positively about his decision to drop out of high school in favor of working in the industry. “I worked really hard. It’s not like I dropped out of high school and just did nothing,” Rogen told CNN in 2013. “I dropped out of high school and went and worked on a TV show. We were writing a script all throughout high school. I probably worked harder than most people who were just doing high school stuff, honestly. I did stand-up comedy all throughout high school. I think, honestly, if you have a career in mind that isn’t academically oriented, then high school is probably not going to lead you to what you want to be.” Roy Rochlin/FilmMagic)
Dillon was discovered at 14 years old while skipping class. The casting agent gave him a part in Over the Edge, and from there, the actor kept getting work, which kind of interfered with going to school. “I didn’t drop out in the classic sense,” he told The New York Times in the ‘90s. “But I kept getting incompletes constantly because I was on movie sets. Gym! Now how was I going to get my gym credits?” Charles Eshelman/FilmMagic
In 2015, Chastain admitted a long-kept secret. “Nobody knows this about me — I dropped out of high school,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “I was not a hard worker. I was a terrible student.” Because the actress “cut school and [sat] in [her] car, reading Shakespeare,” she had too many absences at the end of the school year to graduate. She did, however, later get an adult diploma. David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
It was actually Lil Wayne’s mother who made him drop out of school after his star rose. The rapper shared his story with Katie Couric: “I had an album out. I was platinum already, thank God, and I was still trying to go to regular public school.” When his mom saw him putting a gun in his backpack for protection, she decided it would be better for her son to leave school than risk his safety. “It wasn’t two minutes later, she walked back to my room and said, ‘You don’t go to school no more. You’re getting a GED.’” Paras Griffin/Getty Images
Reeves recounted his high school trauma, which ultimately led to him being expelled, to the Daily Mail in 2008. “It was a very small school and I guess I didn’t fit in,” the Matrix actor recalled. “I had conflicts and run-ins with the staff. The principal and I didn’t see eye-to-eye. I was one of those ‘Why?’ kids — I asked too many questions about everything. I couldn’t stop even if it got me into trouble.” Reeves was not pleased with his expulsion either. “It’s a terrible letter to receive, saying you can’t come back to school next year. Getting asked to leave was very upsetting,” he said. Marc Piasecki/WireImage.com
When Law landed a role in Families at 16 years old, his parents were OK with letting him drop out of school and move to where the show was being filmed. “I can’t believe that now. It was so cool, and trusting of them,” the Fantastic Beasts actor told The Telegraph in 2013. Walter McBride/WireImage.com
Carrey was forced to leave school at the age of 16 to help support his family. The Ace Ventura actor was once a “straight-A student,” but as he revealed on Inside the Actor’s Studio, working in a factory made him want to “bash somebody’s head in.” He was eventually able to find an outlet for his frustrations in comedy. Stefania D'Alessandro/WireImage.com
Jay-Z empowers students through his scholarship foundation, but the rapper doesn’t have a diploma of his own. “Education is super important,” the rapper said in 2011. “I don’t have a high school diploma or a college diploma, but still for me to articulate, I had to have some form of schooling to articulate my thoughts.” Ari Perilstein/Getty Images
“I’m not proud to say I’m a high school dropout,” Swank told the Today show in 2007. “I’m not proud that that’s something that happened, but it happened.” The Oscar winner often got in trouble at school for talking too much, but she was never hopeless about her future prospects, thanks to her mother. Trisha Leeper/WireImage.com
Harry Potter may have been a top student at Hogwarts, but his portrayer can’t say the same for his educational experience. “I’m kind of sure of myself intellectually. And I know I wouldn’t have been if I had stayed in school because, before I did Potter, my confidence had been more or less destroyed by a couple of teachers. So I had it all restored by the people who taught me on the films,” Radcliffe told Parade in 2009 of dropping out. Dave Benett/WireImage.com
Lavigne’s decision to leave school as a teenager happened practically overnight. Producer L.A. Reid signed her after hearing the artist sing on a trip to New York. “I was supposed to do homeschooling — I had books — but I didn’t do it. So basically, I’m a high school dropout,” Lavigne said on an episode of Private Sessions. Jason Merritt/Getty Images
Pacino quit school after 10th grade to work, which, as an only child, he needed to do to support his single mom, who suffered from depression. “I wasn’t very good at school,” he told The Washington Post in 2016. “I wasn’t focused on my classes. My mother had problems, and there was no money coming in.” He didn’t begin his acting career for several more years, but Pacino remembers one of his junior high teachers telling his family, “You have to encourage your boy to act.” Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images
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