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Fall seven times, stand up eight. Life can be tough at times, but you should never give up. From Oprah Winfrey to Jay-Z, the following celebrities faced hardship in their lives. Whether they were challenged by their health, family issues, substance abuse problems, or financial hardship, they kept their eyes on the prize and their patience ultimately paid off. If this list does not inspire you to follow your dreams, something must be wrong with you. Never ever give up.
1. Nicki Minaj
Onika Maraj lived with her grandmother until the age of 5, when she reunited with her parents who moved to America for a better life. Her father was violent and was struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine. One night he even tried to set their house on fire. “He did burn the house down. It wasn’t an attempt, he did! My mother was in the house and she had to run out at the last minute,” Minaj said.
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2. Lionel Messi
At the age of 11, Lionel Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency. The treatment cost $900 a month, which his family could not afford. The sporting director of FC Barcelona heard about Messi’s story and arranged a trial with the team. With no other paper at hand, he offered Messi a contract written on a napkin. Barcelona paid all of Messi’s medical bills on the condition that he moved to Spain. Today, the superstar is an ambassador for UNICEF.
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3. Bill Gates
The richest man in the world failed his first business. He once created a company called Traf-O-Data, which was a device that could read traffic tapes and process data. Gates and his business partner could not get the device to work. The company had only modest success, but the experience was critical in the creation of Microsoft a few years later.
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4. Eminem
Eminem has been pretty outspoken about his troubled lifestyle. He grew up in a trailer home, witnessed domestic violence against his mother and was bullied. He had a rocky relationship with his mother, but in 2014, in his song called Headlights, the rapper apologized and expressed his love for his mother. Eminem is considered to be one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time.
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5. Shia LaBeouf
Shia LaBeouf’s father used to struggle with drugs and alcohol. Growing up, the young actor would take his father to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He also witnessed verbal and mental abuse by his father, who once pointed a gun at his son. That day, Shia’s dad had a Vietnam War flashback. His parents eventually divorced and Shia followed his mother.
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6. Tyler Perry
Tyler Perry did not have the best relationship with his father, Emmitt Perry, Sr. He was constantly beat and abused. He even contemplated suicide at some point to escape from his father’s beatings. He developed a different kind of relationship with his mother, who used to take him to his “happy place”: church. When he was 16, he changed his name from Emmitt to Tyler in order to distance himself from his father. Many years later, a DNA test confirmed that Emmitt Sr. is not Tyler’s biological father.
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7. Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein did not speak until the age of four. His teachers thought he was lazy. He always managed to maintain good grades, eventually developed the theory of relativity and turned out to be one of the greatest scientists of all time.
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8. Jim Carrey
His mother fell very ill when he was 16. He was forced to interrupt his studies and take care of her. He lived in his Volkswagen for a while. This never stopped him from pursuing his dreams. In 1982, Carrey on appeared on the televised stand-up show called An Evening at the Improv. A year later, he debuted his act on The Tonight Show, the rest is history.
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9. Bethany Hamilton
Bethany Hamilton started surfing at a very young age. At age 13, she was attacked by a 14-foot tiger shark and lost her left arm. Local fishermen showed investigators photos of a 14-foot-long tiger shark they had caught not too far from the attack site. It had surfboard pieces in its mouth. Three weeks after the incident, she was back surfing, and two years later, she won the Explorer Women’s Division of the NSSA National Championships.
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10. Richard Branson
Serial entrepreneur Richard Branson was not the best student. He always performed poorly on standardized tests because he had dyslexia. He adapted his management style to his learning disability and built the Virgin empire. According to Forbes, he is now worth $5.1 billion.
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11. Stephen King
The famous author knows how to deal with rejection. After being rejected by publishing houses 30 times, King threw his first book in the trash. His wife retrieved the writings and convinced him to finish it. To date, King sold over 350 million copies of his books.
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12. Oprah Winfrey
Oprah has had a tough life. As a child, she was repeatedly molested by her cousin, uncle and family friend. She ran away from home and, when she was 14, gave birth to a child who later died. Today, she is a very successful self-made woman who is worth $3 billion.
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13. Jay-Z
Jigga had big dreams to become a famous rapper, but no record label would sign him. Along with his friend Dame Dash, he created Roc-A-Fella records and became a very successful hip-hop artist. He is one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 100 million records, and he received 21 Grammy Awards. And he’s married to Beyoncé.
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14. Vincent Van Gogh
Post-Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh is considered to be one of the greatest artists of all time. Do you know how many paintings he sold during his lifetime? One! Van Gogh sold the Red Vineyard at Arles (The Vigne Rouge). It is now exposed in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. The painting was exhibited in Brussels in 1890. Self-portrait Without Beard is one of the most expensive paintings of all time. It was sold for $71.5 million almost a hundred years after Van Gogh’s death.
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15. Franklin Roosevelt
President Roosevelt suffered from polio. The disease eventually left him paralyzed from the waist down at the age of 39. This didn’t prevent him from leading the USA as one of the most respected presidents.
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16. Charlize Theron
When Charlize Theron was 15, she witnessed her mother kill her alcoholic father. She shot him in an act of self-defense. Instead of letting the trauma immobilize her ambition, Theron eventually became one of the most successful African actresses. She won an Oscar in 2003 and a Golden Globe award in 2004.
SEE ALSO: 23 Stars Before The Fame. Will You Recognize Them?
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