12 Celebrities Who Were Homeschooled

You might not have known a ton of homeschooled kids growing up, since, well, they were being homeschooled while you and your friends were at school. There are different schools of thought (sorry, we just had to) on the subject. Some people think it can isolate kids and make it harder for them to socialize when they go to college or become more active in the outside world through work or whatever else. But for many people, it's a super viable option and it makes sense for them. Here are 12 celebs who were homeschooled.

12 Jennifer Love Hewitt

Jennifer Love Hewitt was homeschooled until high school, which was necessary since she was already acting as a child. Having a career makes it pretty tough to get to school on time with the rest of the kids. Jennifer started acting in commercials before landing her first big role on Kids Incorporated. When her family moved to L.A. she enrolled in high school, where one of her classmates grew up to be a talent scout who recommended her for Party of Five. Looks like that was a pretty good move.

11 Venus And Serena Williams

Venus and Serena Williams were both homeschooled from a young age. Serena stuck with that plan but at one point, Venus went back to school because she was super interested in fashion. Both of them seemed to make plenty of time for their tennis practice, however, since they became champs. Their parents actually coached them as well as homeschooled them. Venus is a a seven-time Grand Slam title winner in the singles category, and Serena is a twenty-one-time Grand Slam title winner.

10 Hilary Duff

Hilary and her sister Haylie were both encouraged to get into the entertainment industry by their mom while they were still living in Texas. Eventually, their mom moved them to Los Angeles while their dad stayed home to run his convenience store business. They started booking jobs right away and Hilary was then homeschooled from the age of eight. In the year 2000, she was booked on an NBC pilot but they ended up dropping her. The rest, as they like to say is history, since she then got her role on Disney's Lizzie Mcguire the next week. And we know how well that all worked out.

9 Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber started out going to a traditional school but as his music career took off and he moved to Los Angeles, homeschooling was the best way for him to finish his studies. In 2012, he announced that he had graduated high school by taking online classes and he was one of 192 students from St. Michael Catholic Secondary School in his hometown of Stratford, Ontario. He did not get the chance to actually physically graduate with his class, so Ellen had a faux commencement ceremony for him. Aw, don't you just love Ellen?!

8 Demi Lovato

The actress and singer chose the homeschooling path because she was bullied. She was actually finding lots of Disney Channel success at the time. In 2008, she told Ellen, “I never really understood why [I was being bullied] until looking back… I had a different lifestyle than everyone else.”

7 Justin Timberlake

Justin Timberlake started out at a regular elementary school in Tennessee and then became homeschooled in the sixth grade onward. He got his big break on The Mickey Mouse Club, where he starred with people like Britney Spears and Ryan Gosling. You might have heard of them. In fact, Justin's mom was Ryan Gosling's legal guardian for a while when Ryan's mom had to go back to Canada. Ryan was actually homeschooled as well.

6 Tim Tebow

Tim Tebow was homeschooled until he started college at the University of Florida. He went on to become the 2010 first draft pick for the Denver Broncos as quarterback. Tim was super active in trying to pass a bill that would allow homeschooled kids to participate in the athletics programs at public schools as they're growing up. In 2007, he was the first homeschooled person to be nominated for the Heisman Trophy which he won. He said, “That's really cool. A lot of times people have this stereotype of home-schoolers as not very athletic - it's like, go win a spelling bee or something like that. It's an honor for me to be the first one to do that.”

5 Jena Malone

The actress grew up extremely prove and actually had lived in 27 different places by the age of nine. When she became interested in acting, she and her mom moved to L.A. and she was homeschooled from the sixth until the eighth grade. She quit school a year later and got emancipated. She has a pretty good outlook on the whole experience: "I don't think it was a tough childhood… it prepared me for this strange, gypsy lifestyle of an actor. It's a beautiful thing to give children diversity of where to live and how to live; it makes you believe that security is built within instead of four concrete walls that you call a home.

4 Blake Griffin

Blake Griffin was homeschooled until his college days at the University of Oklahoma. Blake went on to become the 2009 LA Clippers' first round and first overall draft pick. Maybe being homeschooled gives you some extra time to work on those athletic skills? Seems possible. He was also raised pretty religious and his pastor father has credited Blake's homeschooling past with his success.

3 Chris Brown

Chris Brown attended a regular public school but had to switch to homeschooling when his music career really started taking off. He got signed to Jive Records at the age of 13 while he was still living in Virginia, and then became homeschooled at the age of 16 he and his fam moved to Los Angeles. He was pretty much immediately successful from his first album, and today he has 190 awards from 214 nominations including a Grammy, American Music Awards, and BET awards.

2 Condoleezza Rice

Condoleezza Rice was homeschooled until the age of ten and graduated from the University of Denver. She, of course, grew up to be an American political scientist and diplomat as well as the 66th United States Secretary of State. She has a definite love and respect for education: she has called it "transformative" and has said "It literally changes lives."

1 Dakota Fanning

Dakota Fanning was working as an actress at the young age of five and won a Screen Actor's Guild award at seven for I Am Sam. She didn't exactly have time for normal school, and could you blame her? She eventually enrolled at NYU but continued to shoot movies while studying and trying to be a "normal" student. Dakota has said she doesn't remember people not having any idea who she is. So the homeschooling seems like a pretty smart and normal choice for her.