Cole Sprouse: My Narcissistic Mum Sacrificed My Childhood For Fame! | E229

Cole Sprouse traces his life as a working child actor who started in diaper commercials at eight months old, raised by a single mother who he says was living vicariously through her twins and put them into acting partly as an economic loophole around child labor laws. He describes his mother's narcissism, mental illness, and drug abuse, the court ruling her unfit, and custody shifting to his father in Switzerland and later LA. The conversation explores his philosophy that trauma becomes wisdom and lessons rather than victimhood, his relationship with acting versus the fame and social media that came with it, and his turn to photography as a creative outlet and form of healing. He opens up about social anxiety, grounding techniques learned in therapy, people-pleasing, boundaries, love, and being one year sober. The episode closes with Sprouse and host Steven Bartlett trading written diary questions, touching on manifestation, authenticity, labels, and what each would say to their younger selves.

• Sprouse holds the show's record for the earliest-working guest, beginning at eight months old in diaper commercials.
  00:05:09
• He describes his mother as struggling with mental illness, drug abuse, and primarily a 'wicked narcissism.'
  00:10:54
• The court stepped in, deemed his mother unfit, and moved him and his brother to their father.
  00:11:25
• He explains he turned to photography after a major post-college breakup to process his emotional state and heal.
  00:33:53
• He confirms he no longer speaks to his mother.
  00:50:35
• Sprouse reveals he has been sober for about a year.
  01:00:58
• He frames disconnection from nature, people, purpose, and one's own soul as the root cause that drives people to therapy.
  01:08:09

• Identical twins are valuable in acting because they double the legal working hours for a single character role, an economic loophole around child labor laws.
  00:26:32
• He values having cut his teeth pre-social-media, when a bad direct-to-DVD movie could disappear to 'the back of Blockbuster' unseen.
  00:07:45
• He started photography at 18 on his first trip to London, documenting his brother.
  00:25:40
• He runs an Instagram account called Camera Duels where he photographs people who covertly photograph him.
  00:36:31
• His grounding technique for anxiety is activating his five senses to anchor himself in the present, taught by a therapist in Vancouver.
  00:41:10
• A child earning since eight months old is forced into an authority/breadwinner role over the adults, which he says no child should occupy.
  00:54:14
• His father got a vasectomy immediately after finding out he was having twins.
  01:17:26
• Sprouse argues manifestation is oversold because it obfuscates personal responsibility, hard work, luck, and circumstance.
  01:11:11