- Sprouse and his twin brother Dylan became household names after starring in The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody when they were 12 years old
- The Sprouse twins also shared roles in the Adam Sandler comedy Big Daddy, That 70s Show and the iconic Friends, while popular child stars
- But the actor, now 30, claims mum Melanie pushed them into the industry to capitalize on their talent following her divorce from their father
Cole Sprouse has accused his estranged mother of ‘evil narcissism’ after previously claiming she forced him into acting to satisfy her own need for validation.
Sprouse and his twin brother Dylan became household names after landing starring roles in the Disney series The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody when they were 12 years old.
But the actor, now 30, claims mum Melanie pushed them into the industry to capitalize on their talent following her divorce from their dad Matthew – who he describes as a ‘wonderful guy’ – before their first birthday.
Speaking to Steven Bartlett’s Diary Of A CEO, he said: ‘My mum was and still is the tortured artist type. She struggled in many different ways with her place in the world.
‘I think she found a huge sense of self-identity through motherhood and trying to make it a profitable business at the same time, which for identical twins going into acting is a financial loophole – there are labor laws that can be unbelievable. profitable, so she did.’
He added: ‘It made a lot of financial sense for her to push us into acting. I think it satisfied a kind of narcissism she probably had to be recognized as a kind of artistic success.
‘She was a wonderful painter, so she always wanted some kind of artistic recognition and validation. But as time went on, I think the entertainment industry kind of broke her.’
The Sprouse twins also co-starred in the Adam Sandler comedy Big Daddy, That 70s Show and the iconic Friends while establishing themselves as popular child stars.
But Cole has since split from his mother, publicly discussing their broken relationship in a series of recent interviews.
During his latest, the actor claims that court officials were forced to step in and give their father sole custody after Melanie was deemed unfit to parent the children.
He said: ‘This industry encourages the worst qualities in you as a person… selfishness, greed. Many of these things we have come to know as cardinal sins. It is one of the things that encouraged a kind of selfishness that is directly opposed to the basic idea of motherhood.
‘And when I got older, in my case the court had to step in and send my brother and I against my father, who is an incredible guy.
“But that selfishness is something the justice system also observed and said she was unfit, and I think as I’ve gotten older, I’ve looked back at a lot of circumstances in that whole environment, and I see a person , struggling with mental illness, substance abuse, but primarily narcissism.
‘A vicious narcissism. The inability to perceive something from your own perspective, and it just doesn’t work with being a mother, with being a family in general.’
Sprouse has previously discussed his upbringing on the Call Her Daddy Podcast, where he claimed his mother threw away their childhood earnings.
He told the Spotify show: ‘When my dad got forced custody, we pretty much lost everything from the (earliest) parts of our career.’
Addressing his mother’s unstable condition, he noted: ‘I think it was the consequence of some alchemy of addiction and mental instability, and that’s probably the biggest wound of my life.’