How Mischa Barton Went From Tabloid Target to "Dancing With the Stars"
The height of Mischa Barton's career was in the early to mid-00s, when she starred as Marissa Cooper on The O.C., FOX's hit show about rich, troubled high-school students. Although the London-born, U.S.-raised star only appeared on the show for three seasons, it catapulted her to fame (she'd previously had small roles in Notting Hill and The Sixth Sense). Her career seemed full of promise, with many magazines labeling her "the next big thing." Post-O.C., though, the meaty parts never seemed to materialize; instead, Mischa became a tabloid fixture, a target of the rising 24-hour gossip blogs, which made their living reporting on the life and times of young starlets like Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Nicole Richie. There was a DUI, cruel pap photos, a stay at a psychiatric ward, a lawsuit against her mother, and a near total fade from the limelight. Now she's back, debuting tonight as a contestant on Dancing With Stars - but is it a comeback? One hopes. Meantime, here is a timeline of the star's complicated career.
August 2003: The O.C. premieres on FOX, and its instant popularity cemented Mischa's status as a Hollywood's newest "It" Girl.
October 2003: Seventeen-year-old Mischa appears topless in Enrique Iglesias's music video, "Addicted," stirring up controversy because of her age. Enrique is quoted about a month after the video's premiere saying he "didn't know" she was underage.
December 2003: The O.C. is named one of Entertainment Weekly's TV breakouts of 2003.
January 2004: Mischa opens up to MTV about what it's like being the only actual teen on the set of her teen drama. Of her newfound fame, she say, "It's very flattering, I guess, to be considered so popular at a young age. It's kinda cool."
February 2004: Mischa meets then-boyfrend Brandon Davis at a charity event and soon after begins her first relationship in the public eye.
April 2004: Mischa discusses the intense scrutiny she faces from the media in an interview with Cosmopolitan, saying, "It's really weird when people scrutinize every little thing about you and talk about your outfits and your weight and who you're dating … and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it." She also explains that going out isn't totally her thing because she doesn't like huge crowds and doesn't like to "push it too much."
May 2004: Eighteen-year-old Mischa is included in People's "Most Beautiful People" issue.
June 2004: Mischa lands the June cover of Teen Vogue.
May 2005: Continuing with her magazine domination, Mischa is included on Maxim's hot 100 list at no. 33.
July 2005: Mischa and Brandon split after a year of dating. Mischa also attends Nicole Richie's engagement party and appears on the cover of Glamour's Second Annual "Women of the Year" issue.
September 2005: Mischa is included on People's "Emmys Best Dressed" list.
February 2006: When asked about Paris Hilton - who also happened to be Nicole Richie's ex-best friend at the time - at an event, Mischa calls her out for supposedly creating a rivalry between her and Nicole, and then goes on to say: "[Hilton] seems to hate everyone around her age who is more successful ... She does steal people's boyfriends!" (Paris was dating Mischa's ex, Brandon Davis.) Although Mischa's rep later clarified that the boyfriend-stealing comment was a joke, Paris did not respond well, telling People, "I don't even know the girl. I could care less. It seems like she is the one who is trying to stir up a rivalry. I have never said a word about her in my life. But she seems to be spending a lot of time thinking about me."
May 2006: After three massively successful seasons on The O.C., Mischa lets it slip during an interview that her character will be killed off in the final episode of season three. There was a lot of speculation as to the real reason behind her departure from the show, but the general consensus was that Mischa left in order to focus on a film career.
August 2006: Mischa wins a Teen Choice Award for her role in The O.C. (She also won in the Breakout TV Star category in 2004.)
November 2006: Mischa covers the November issue of Vogue. Later this month, reports emerge that Mischa got a little too drunk at a club and performed a Britney Spears song while holding a bottle of champagne. One gossip site cryptically wrote, "Hopefully, this isn't the beginning of downward spiral for Mischa Barton."
January 2007: News breaks that The O.C. will be canceled after its fourth season, surviving only one year after Mischa's departure from the cast. Mischa is also allegedly dropped as a spokesmodel for Bebe this month.
February 2007: February is a rough month for Mischa. She and musician Cisco Adler break up after a year and a half of dating. She also gets into a slight fender-bender while driving Nicole Richie's SUV, and a photo of her allegedly smoking pot in a car (unrelated to the accident) surfaces.
March 2007: Mischa is seen drunkenly leaving a bar to throw up, and then reentering the same bar to continue partying.
May 2007: Pictures of Mischa allegedly smoking a joint in Cannes emerge. A few days after those pictures surface, Mischa is hospitalized after drinking while on antibiotics at Nicole Richie's Memorial Day barbecue. While Mischa's rep maintains it was a bad reaction between cocktails and bronchitis medication, there are rumors that Mischa was actually so high on shrooms that she panicked and needed to be taken to the hospital.
August 2007: Keeping a seemingly lower party-girl profile after her hospitalization, Mischa hangs out with Rihanna at a Paper magazine dinner celebrating Rihanna's cover.
December 2007: Mischa opens up in an interview with The Independent about where she sees her career going but also reveals that she thinks her party-girl image is really just a creation of the media so she "takes it with a grain of salt."
Less than 10 days after the interview is published, Mischa is arrested on suspicion of a DUI, possession of illegal substances, and for driving without a valid license. She spends seven hours in jail before being released on $10,000 bail.
January 2008: Mischa speaks out about her DUI for the first time on Ryan Seacrest's radio show, saying, "I'm really disappointed in myself. I don't know what to say about it, except that I'm not perfect, and I just don't ever intend to do something this stupid again." She also explains that her lack of a valid license was a result of her growing up in New York, which is "the land of people who don't have to drive." Her film Assassination of a High School President premieres at the Sundance film festival later in the month.
February 2008: Mischa is officially charged with possession of marijuana, driving under the influence, and driving without a valid license.
March 2008: Mischa is interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald to discuss her upcoming films, but the conversation turns to the recent events in her not-so-private life. Of the DUI, she says, "It's funny, because I've always been like the big sister to all my friends and I'm like the mom to my little sister. So I don't look at myself a lot or what I'm going through. So when I start going through things I'll reflect it off. I don't like to deal with stuff for me. I'm better at dealing with stuff for other people. That's what I'm use [sic] to."
April 2008: Mischa avoids jail time from her DUI after agreeing to a plea deal and is instead sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation following her DUI charges.
May 2008: #CelluliteGate breaks loose when the Daily Mail purchases and publishes photos of Mischa's dimpled thighs while she's on vacation. While there is literally nothing wrong with having cellulite, Mischa's rep claims the pictures were photoshopped by a paparazzo in an attempt to make Mischa look bad, and the photographer denies those claims. Mischa fights back against the harsh criticism of her body by the Daily Mail - the article included comments like "[Mischa] appears to be fighting a losing battle with the dreaded cellulite" - saying, "Every woman has cellulite. I've never claimed to have a perfect body."
July/August 2008: In the August issue of Nylon and the September issue of Marie Claire (both interviews were published in July), Mischa opens up about her DUI from the previous December. To Marie Claire, she calls it a "low point in [her] life," and hopes that her apology can be enough. She gets a little more personal in Nylon, still referencing the arrest as a "low point," but also throwing some shade at the girls she used to call her friends: "It was one of those things that I never thought would happen to me, and I was disappointed because it associated me with a group of girls that I would rather not be associated with. That was the biggest bummer for me - I didn't leave my house. I was too embarrassed. They made such a big deal out of it with these other young actresses that, for a little bit, I wanted to crawl into a hole and die."
February 2009: After speculation that she had recently become unhealthily thin, Mischa fires back at the press with a statement about her weight. On her website, she says: "Just so you guys know I'm happier and healthier than ever. Things are really well in Mischa world and I've just been watching what I eat." She also shared a message for girls who might be witnessing the media fixation with her weight: "I think it's very unhealthy for young girls to read about and pay attention to. To my female fans: Just be happy and secure with yourself and don't let other people's perceptions of you dictate the way you live your life."
April 2009: Mischa defends her body once again in an interview for Cosmopolitan UK's May issue, saying, "I wouldn't change my body, and I couldn't anyways." She also takes a dig at the media's brutal takedown of her looks. She says it's "human nature to want to pick on other people, but I find it a little shallow ... Surely there are more important issues than if someone has cellulite?"
Mischa is also reportedly seen starting to make the rounds in the London party circuit again.
June 2009: Mischa attempts to garner some good publicity by opening Harrods Summer Sale, but the focus was instead on her looks, with reports saying she appeared much paler than usual and that her face looked slightly swollen, which a source close later claimed to be a result of a wisdom tooth surgery.
July 2009: Access Hollywood breaks the news that Mischa has been placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold, meaning that under Section 5150 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code, someone can be retained if they present a danger to themselves or others, are gravely disabled, or suffer from a mental disorder. (It was the same code that justified Britney Spears's involuntary hold.) Because of the hold, Mischa misses the world premiere of her movie Homecoming. Mischa is released from the hospital nearly two weeks later and returns to filming her series for The CW, The Beautiful Life, which was being produced by Ashton Kutcher.
August 2009: People runs an article about Mischa's hospitalization called "Why She Fell Apart," in which friends are quoted saying they aren't surprised by what happened as she's been "spiraling for two years." People also cites the 2007 incident when Mischa was taken to the hospital from Nicole Richie's Memorial Day party as a wakeup call for many of Mischa's friends, who began to distance themselves from her after the fact. A source said that Nicole stopped hanging out with her as much because "Mischa is just too screwed up on drugs and alcohol." The hospitalization came as a "relief" to Mischa's friends, according to the article, because it could hopefully bring her some help.
Later in the month, Mischa says her hospitalization was a result of the stress from a rough wisdom tooth surgery, figuring out contracts, and preparing for her new show. She tells Time Out New York, "Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom about things and have to get the most stressed out just to feel better again." However, she denies that it was an actual mental breakdown.
September 2009: Mischa tells The View that her hospitalization was "blown out of proportion, so it's kind of silly now to be talking about it because I'm so fine now, but it was really just a bad time for me." She also expands on why her wisdom teeth surgery caused her such pain. When pressed about why she was taken to a psychiatric hospital for a physical problem, Mischa explained: "When they take you into the hospital for something when it goes really wrong if you're having a meltdown and you say something like 'I feel like I want to die,' ... they start injecting you with things to calm down. Like I'm petrified of needles. Like absolutely petrified …"
The CW series The Beautiful Life is canceled after only two episodes air.
November 2009: Mischa tells Us Weekly that the early cancelation of her show was a "really shitty situation," but that "these days television is just as good as movies ... I'm looking forward to being part of something that is right in the future."
December 2009: Mischa talks to Heat magazine about her hospitalization and tries to set the record straight once again that drugs weren't involved, though her hospitalization ultimately did have a positive effect on her.
January 2010: Despite the New Year, things don't seem to be getting better for Mischa. Reports emerge that she is struggling to successfully complete a guest role as a prostitute on SVU: Law & Order because her partying habits are getting in the way again.
News also comes out that Mischa is being sued by her New York landlord for failing to pay three months worth of rent on a $7,000-a-month apartment. She had originally signed a yearlong lease on the apartment to live in while filming The Beautiful Life, before the show was axed.
March 2010: Mischa puts her Beverly Hills mansion up for sale for $8.4 million. She purchased the home in 2005, while she was at the height of her The O.C. stardom.
April 2010: Lindsay Lohan and Mischa are spotted hanging at Nylon's 11th anniversary party. At the same party, Mischa allegedly runs into her ex Brandon Davis. It is reported that afterward, Brandon took to Twitter and trashed Mischa's looks and called her a "heifer." However, he denied that he tweeted those things and the account was determined to be an impostor account.
July 2010: Mischa announces she is no longer drinking so she can better focus on her career, which involves reading more scripts and continuing to design her line of handbags.
October 2010: Mischa tells OK! she was "wrongly portrayed" in a documentary about her life, produced by Fearne Cotton. There was a scene in the documentary that implied Mischa was keeping the film crew waiting, even though Mischa says, "Fearne never let on that she was irritated about waiting. She acts like everything's so great and she loves you and they cut it together and make it seem like it was a terribly painful experience for them." She also expresses her regret in doing the documentary in the first place, saying: "I wish I hadn't done it and that's bad because there are enough misconceptions about me in the press. [Fearne's] got nothing to lose if she makes a more salacious story, she's only got everything to gain."
November 2010: In the January issue of Tatler (which was published in November), Mischa, again, explains what happened when she was hospitalized. She said the "terrible surgery" to remove her wisdom teeth drove her "mad." But she wishes it hadn't taken place so publicly: "For ages after that 5150 I'd walk down the street and people would give me the crazy eye: 'There's Mischa Barton, she's insane, isn't she?'"
April 2011: TMZ reports that Mischa owes a private nursing company $95,000 because of services she used in 2009, and that she never showed up to court to negotiate the amount. Mischa's rep said this was the first they had heard of the case.
October 2011: Mischa poses with and eats raw meat for a photo shoot with Tyler Shields. PETA has an issue with this photo shoot.
January 2012: Mischa tells Fabulous magazine she's never had problems with alcohol or drugs, contrary to the image she can't seem to shake in the media. She says, "I've never had any problems with alcohol or drugs, I know why people may have thought that I did and things were hard for me, but I was young."
March 2012: Mischa launches her own fashion line and e-commerce site called "Mischa's Place."
August 2012: Months after launching her fashion website, she opens up a boutique in London.
November 2012: Mischa tells Daily Mail, "People are fascinated by me and always have been and I have no clue why." She goes on to explain how it can ruin her day, and sometimes she consider giving "it" all up and "becoming a primary-school teacher in a remote mountain village."
February 2013: TMZ reports that Mischa will try to avoid paying the $90,000 in fees, which turned out to be for sober coaches, she accumulated in 2009 because it was her mother that hired the coaches, not Mischa.
March 2013: Mischa talks to The Daily Beast about her horror movie A Resurrection and also shares that she's glad to no longer be in the spotlight: "I'm so relieved it's not how it was. It's not the person. It was the time. Everything was an 'it' girl this or 'it' girl that. It was just over the top." While expressing optimism about her future career and film prospects, she also reflects on that fact that she wishes she had gone to college and "majored in sociology or psychology or something like that."
August 2013: Mischa shuts down the possibility of The O.C. reunion days after its 10th anniversary. She also implies that her role on The O.C. derailed a different path to acting she could have taken, saying, "You can't say that you feel one way or another about things, but before The O.C. I was on track to do some great films, as well, and one things [sic] happens and then I got this mega stardom all from this show. It is what it is, but I'm not looking to get sucked back into the limelight of it."
October 2013: In a tell-all interview with People, Mischa finally opens up about what really led to her hospitalization, without mentioning that her wisdom teeth played a role in it. She had taken a sedative to combat her anxiety, which led to her blacking out and being transported to the hospital. There, she panicked and threatened suicide, which led to her involuntary psychiatric hold. She told People that it was a "full-on breakdown. It was terrifying." She said relentless media scrutiny as well as a "work hard, play hard" mentality led to the eventual breakdown: "It was a train I could not get off of. When you're young, you can do it, but after a while, it's going to come crashing down on you." She also revealed that the constant insults directed toward her appearance, especially her weight, did affect her. "When you're under a microscope, you learn to switch it off. I don't think you realize how hurtful it is until much later."
August 2014: Mischa reiterates her opinion that The O.C. potentially ruined her burgeoning film career. She tells Metro: "It's something I came so close to not doing. I had a really great thing with film. People say be grateful for what you have but it certainly not [sic] the kind of thing I was expecting it to be … I've kind of seen it all."
People also reports that Mischa is nearly $100,000 behind in mortgage payments on her Beverly Hills home, and that it had recently been placed in foreclosure.
February 2015: According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mischa signs with the Agency for the Performing Arts (APA) in a potential sign of progress in getting her career back on track.
April 2015: Mischa files a lawsuit against her mom - who is also her manager - for allegedly pocketing the money Mischa was paid for a movie and for kicking Mischa out of her house. She also says in the suit, reported by TMZ, that both her parents "sit back expecting their daughter's hard work and dedication to her craft to support their lifestyle."
September 2015: TMZ reports that Mischa's Audi Q3 might be repossessed because she has failed to make regular payments in at least four months.
February 2016: Mischa finds herself facing another car repossession after failing to make regular payments on a Volkswagen she had leased. According to reports obtained by TMZ, she might owe over $25,000 on this car alone.
March 2016: Finally, some good news for Mischa. It's confirmed that she will be a contestant on season 22 of Dancing With the Stars. She told Us Weekly that she "just wanted to try something new, and push [herself]."
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