Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen became famous before they could even walk. At only nine months old, the pair scored the role of cutie-pie Michelle Tanner on the mega-hit television show Full House. The world became obsessed with the darling twinsies and the role catapulted the girls to fame and fortune. They turned their twin persona into one of most successful child acting businesses to ever exist.

Mary-Kate and Ashley continued to recreate themselves as they grew older by moving away from acting and stepping into the wonderful world of business and fashion, where they have developed successful clothing lines at just about every price point available. Today the twins are worth roughly four hundred MILLION dollars.

Whoa, baby!

Even with the ability to build an empire beyond their wildest imaginations, the duo has also had to stare down their fair share of hardships including divorce, health issues, and even death. While the famously private pair definitely does their best to hold their cards close, we still managed to dig up fifteen skeletons the Olsen family might want to keep hidden away in their uber fashionable closets.

18 Fame Took Its Toll

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen began their acting career when they were only nine months old, and that was a total accident to boot. Mom Jarnie was friends with the Full House casting agent and when the twins went to their casting call, they managed to be the only pair of twins that didn't bawl their eyes out. It ended up being enough to snag them the gig. Their parents David and Jarnie never set out to create a bevy of child actors, but one day they blinked and found that they were raising dual mega-stars. Besides trying to juggle the twins' massive careers, the pair had a son a few years older than the girls and a younger daughter Elizabeth. The fame, the fortune and the demands that come along with stardom were simply too much for the young family to endure and the Olsens ended up divorcing in 1995.

17 The Olsen Twins Didn't Like Their Childhood

Mary-Kate granted an interview to the magazine Marie Claire back in 2010 and shed some serious light on her feelings and opinions regarding her own upbringing in the spotlight. She referred to childhood experiences in front of the cameras as being a "monkey performer". Whoa. She went on to let the world know that she would not wish her childhood on anyone. The twins eventually moved away from smiling for the cameras and turned their interests towards the business and fashion world instead of the acting and entertainment world. It seemed that by the time the girls were legal adults, they were ready to commit themselves to something other than what they had experienced as children.

16 Daddy Olsen Has Financial Troubles

Back in 2010, father David Olsen and his second wife McKensie were facing foreclosure on their Tarzana, California home. The pair filed for bankruptcy, and after falling behind on their mortgage payments found themselves in the hole for a whopping 2.2. million dollars! Two million dollars sounds like an incredible amount of money to us mere mortals, but to Mary-Kate and Ashley, sums like that are a drop in the bucket. The Olsen kids have always been very close to their parents, even after their traumatic divorce, so it was perplexing as to why MK and Ashley didn't step in and save their father and his wife from total financial ruin and possible homelessness. Perhaps more was brewing under the surface when it came to this family and their dynamics.

15 Did You Know They Have A Brother?

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen can't even remember a time where their lives weren't of interest to the public. They have literally been in the entertainment industry since they were in cradles. Their younger sister Elizabeth decided to bypass the child actor route after landing a few small acting roles but has since taken the film world by storm in her adult years. So we have three insanely talented, driven and beautiful Olsen daughters ruling the silver screen, the fashion world and multiple facets of the business industry. Then there is Trent. Who? Yeah, the Olsens actually have an older bro who we very rarely hear about (they also have a few half siblings from Dad Dave). Trent made a couple of cameos in his sisters' straight to DVD movies but otherwise has really shied away from the public eye. It can't be a piece of cake living under the shadow of his three younger sisters.

14 ...Who Is Also An Entrepreneur

Just about everyone who grew up with an older brother fell victim to their pranks or mischief at one point or another, and the Olsen girls are no different than the average girls in that one respect. The famous twins grew up with an older brother Trent, who for the most part steered clear of the lime light. Just because Mary Kate and Ashley's bro didn't actively seek out fame, didn't necessarily mean that he didn't seek out fortune. Trent showed early signs of entrepreneurship when he would have his sisters autograph pictures of themselves and then sell the images to his schoolmates. Even as a child, he knew that his famous sisters were money makers and was looking to make a dollar off of them. The girls, for the most part, weren't put off and seemed happy to oblige.

13 Their Friends Can't Be Trusted

Mary-Kate and Ashley have always done their best to keep their personal lives as private as possible. After spending their entire childhoods in front of the world, they seemed to really make an effort to stay out of the tabloids as much as they possibly could. Enter Spencer Pratt. You might recognize this guy's name from a small reality show known as The Hills, where he went on to marry cast member Heidi Montag. Before Pratt gained his fifteen minutes of MTV fame, he released images of his old friend Mary-Kate boozing at a high school party to the tabloids for fifty grand. It's no wonder the twins keep their circles small and tight these days.

12 Mary-Kate Is Now A Step Mom

We aren't going to lie, Mary-Kate doesn't strike us as the most maternal of characters. Regardless of the public persona that she tends to exude, she is actually a mom of sorts. When MK married her French banker beau, Oliver Sarkozy, she instantly became a stepmother to his two children. This is apparently a role that she takes very seriously, but it can't be all roses and sunshine trying to step-parent teens. She does seem to have a working balance between her intense career demands and her domestic duties. Both she and her husband work hard, but they also make sure that they prioritize their family. Mary-Kate makes sure to spend plenty of time bonding with her stepkids, and she and her husband even cook them dinner. Mary-Kate's stepdaughter is now thirteen and her stepson is about sixteen.

11 MK's Involvement With Heath Ledger's Passing

Mary-Kate again landed in the tabloids with the untimely passing of actor Heath Ledger. Ledger was found unconscious in his apartment by his masseuse and instead of immediately dialing 911, she dialed Mary-Kate, who was at the time across the country for work. She in fact called Mary-Kate a number of times, who then called her personal New York security team, before contacting emergency services. Rumors swirled like crazy about the pair and it was later revealed that the two had been casually dating prior to Heath's passing. When the DEA discovered ample quantities of illegal substances in Heath's apartment they immediately wanted to speak with MK. Interestingly, she refused to discuss any Heath-related matters with authorities without a guaranteed immunity clause. Immunity for what exactly, Mary Kate?

10 The (Un)paid Internship

The twin power duo found themselves embroiled in a legal battle with an ex-intern who claimed that she and forty other interns worked some fifty hours a week for the Olsens' company Dualstar and never got paid. The former staff member swore that the company interns worked to the bone cleaning, copying and running personal errands for Mary-Kate and Ashley but when it came time to collect what was meant for them, they were left with nothing. The company refused to pay them or compensate the interns with vocational or academic credit, which is by law required for any internship. In the end, the ladies paid out some $140,000 to some one hundred and eighty-five interns for the work that they did with the Olsens' fashion line The Row. After court and lawyer fees, the amount ended up equating to roughly five hundred and thirty dollars an intern.

9 The Twins Are PETA's Worst Enemy

Back in the day, nearly every girl under the age of fifteen was a fan of Mary-Kate and Ashley. At the height of their popularity the twins even had their own official fan club! But these days, the ladies have a foes. One of those nemeses happens to be the animal rights group PETA. PETA put the fashion-forward sisters on blast when they released a seventeen thousand dollar patchwork fur handbag in a collection for their line The Row. The activist group was furious and started calling the sisters "The Trollstens". They even gave them new nick-names, Hairy-Kate and Trashley Trollston! While these are quite the catchy monikers, they aren't very nice and we are sure that Ashley and MK didn't appreciate the hateful comments made by the group.

8 Wacky Weddings

It was strange enough to try and wrap our heads around the concept that tiny, twenty-five-year-old Mary Kate was dating a man old enough to be her father, but then again, MK is nothing if not unconventional. Mary Kate took up with divorced, French businessman Oliver Sarkozy. Suddenly we were all bombarded with images of the brother to the ex-French president awkwardly stroking the face of little MK at sporting events and intimate meals. While we weren't too keen on witnessing their strange love affair, they sure were into it because the pair got married just a few years into their courtship. The wedding was as odd as their union itself. Instead of vases of flowers at the reception, the tables were adorned with bowls of cigarettes. Smoking was the overall theme of the evening apparently. Yup...truly bizarre.

7 MK's Battle With Food

Because the twins grew up in front of millions of Americans they sadly had their most private and personal problems aired out to the public. This is a challenging thing to accept for grown adults living in the public eye, so we can not imagine how exposed Mary-Kate and Ashley felt when their struggles became an entire country's business. Mary-Kate was still a teenager when she had to battle a serious case of anorexia, all while living in the public eye. You could not buy an entertainment magazine without having her skin-and-bones body displayed all over the cover! Ashley fared slightly better but has recently revealed that she suffers from Lupus, which has taken quite a toll on her health and her lifestyle. Both women have had to power through and overcome health concerns while under the microscope.

6 Strange Fashion Sense

Much of Mary-Kate and Ashley's fortune comes from their multiple fashion lines.  The twins first released 'Mary-Kate and Ashley: Real Clothes for Real Girls' back in the early 2000s. The line was housed at Walmart, of all places, making it accessible to basically everyone. They then made a major jump from Walmart to couture, when they started their line The Row. This high-priced fashion line based in London sells items that most of us can only imagine owning. This forty thousand dollar Nile crocodile backpack from the Row collection gained serious criticism due to its decor. Those dots aren't gems, they are in fact prescription pills! Considering Mary-Kate's possible involvement in the untimely overdose-caused death of good friend and maybe ex-boyfriend Heath Ledger, this probably wasn't a great addition to their collection.

5 ...And Wizardry

Both Mary Kate and Ashley are big believers in the spiritual world. Ashley is reportedly a mega "sage-er". She burns the ancient herb constantly to make sure that her home is cleansed of evil spirits. Sounds like a perfectly normal way to spend a Saturday afternoon doesn't it? Both girls also have a bizarre fascination with certain crystals, and not the kind that they put on their designer clothing apparel. The pair scatters the gems all over their homes so that the balance in the environment stays positive. Ladies, you realize that you are putting a lot of pressure on a couple of stone and some weeds, right? Their methods of staying safe from evil spirits sound pretty out there to us.

4 Ashley's Necrosis

This is actually as nasty as it sounds.  The sweet little faces of Mary-Kate and Ashley have changed dramatically in recent years due to their little additions to plastic surgery.  Ashley went under the knife a few years back for a filler surgery known as a liquid face lift procedure. It didn't go so well. The procedure caused Ashley's face to bruise, swell and even start blackening! So what was happening to poor Ashley's lovely face?  She was, in fact, suffering from a condition known as Necrosis. This is where some of the bone tissue dies, due to a lack of an adequate blood supply.  The botched job even left the star with a permanent dark mark on her face as a result of both the condition and the treatment. It's a shame that she had to go and mess with a naturally beautiful thing.

3 Divorce Trauma For The Olsen Kids

I think it's safe to say that divorce is never easy on kids and all family members end up affected in some way, shape or form. No one gets out of such a drastic life changes unscathed, and the Olsen kids were no exception to this rule when their parents Jarnie and Dave finally called it quits. Mary Kate and Ashley were devastated when their family unit crumbled. Sadly their parents' separation coincided with the end of their hit television show Full House. The girls were hit with a feeling of loss for not one family, but TWO families all at the tender age of nine. Because the twins started filming the show at nine months of age, they grew up viewing the cast as a second family. Their television dad Bob Saget even changed a few diapers in his days on set.

2 Marriage Round Two

David and Jarnie Olsen couldn't weather the insane pressures and constant demands of running a family-based empire. Unlike crazed momagers like Tish Cyrus and Kris Kardashian, they never signed up for a roller coaster of fame and wealth. Their twins fell into acting and no one could have predicted what that small television role would do to the trajectory of their nine month old daughters' lives as well as the course of their marriage. The Olsen twin craze truly took on a life all on its own, and like a runaway train, it was basically impossible to stop. The fame train ended up plowing over Jarnie and David's marriage. Their divorce was traumatic for all four kids, but time did help heal wounds, and David moved on and married his second wife, McKensie. They then started a second branch to the Olsen family, resulting in a son and a daughter.

1 Working Vacations

These days the Olsen girls jet off to whatever private location tickles their fancy and they don't think twice about it. We figure that after working to the bone for their entire lives, they deserve however many vacations they deem necessary. Younger sister and famous actress Elizabeth Olsen disclosed to reporters that while the Olsen kids did take vacations during their childhoods, they were always working vacations. It seems that because Mary-Kate and Ashley were in such high demand, the family was always jet setting to some part of the world, and because they had to be there anyhow, they simply killed two birds with one stone and called it the family vacation. Sadly for the twins, they never got to enjoy the simple pleasure of just relaxing while at their destination. They were always earning a dollar for something.