Demi Moore

Ghost made $505 million in 1990, and Demi Moore was the reason people paid to see it twice. The pottery-wheel scene with Patrick Swayze became one of the most replicated images in 90s pop culture. She'd come up through the Brat Pack in St. Elmo's Fire and About Last Night, but none of that mattered after Ghost. The film was the highest-grossing release of the year, and the industry noticed. Within five years, she'd negotiated a $12.5 million payday for Striptease, becoming the highest-paid actress in Hollywood.

Striptease torpedoed the momentum. Critics treated her $12.5 million salary as a punchline, the Razzie for Worst Actress made things official, and she spent the next two decades collecting credits that didn't make reels. The Substance (2024) changed the math. Coralie Fargeat's body horror film earned her a Golden Globe, a SAG Award, and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, with five total nominations including Best Picture. She has said a producer called her a 'popcorn actress' thirty years ago. The Substance was a pretty good rebuttal.

Her 2019 memoir Inside Out hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list and held nothing back. She wrote about being raped at 15, growing up with two alcoholic parents, and a marriage to Ashton Kutcher that came apart. She's written that Kutcher used their threesomes as justification for his cheating, and that the relationship cost her two decades of sobriety. The book was her version of settling scores in print. Whether it changed anything depends on whether you think accountability memoirs actually do.