Mindhole Blowers: 20 Actual Facts about Kirk Cameron that Sound Like April Fool's Jokes

By Dustin Rowles | Lists | September 1, 2016 |

1. In 1982, three years before “Growing Pains,” Tracy Gold and Kirk Cameron appeared as siblings in a McDonald’s commercial.

2. In real life, in 1991, Kirk Cameron married his “Growing Pains” girlfriend/wife, Chelsea Noble, who appeared in two episodes of “Full House” before she appeared on “Growing Pains.” “Full House” starred Cameron’s real-life little sister, Candace Cameron (who would later marry hockey star, Valeri Bure).

3. Chelsea Noble was an adopted child, which is part of the reason that she and Kirk have four adopted, mixed-race children (they also have two biological children). The names of their children are Jack, Isabella, Ahna, Luke, Olivia, and Chaim.

4. Kirk Cameron was an atheist as a teenager but had a religious conversion in 1988 at the age of 17, becoming a born-again Christian. As a result, he demanded that his fiance on the show, who was played by Julie McCullough, be written out of the show because she had appeared in Playboy. McCullough did a follow-up episode a year later but was not happy about it because she resented Cameron for having her fired.

5. After Cameron’s religious conversion, he accused three of the producers who attempted to introduce light adult themes to the show of being pornographers. The three producers resigned rather than deal with Cameron, who had become increasingly difficult to work with after his conversion.

6. In 1989, Cameron forced producers to kill off the character of Tracy Gold’s boyfriend, who was played by Matthew Perry, because he believed that Perry was an agent of Satan.

7. Kirk Cameron was named after Captain Kirk, the “Star Trek” character played by William Shatner. Ironically, Cameron’s co-star in “Growing Pains,” Andrew Koenig (who played Boner), was the son of Walter Koenig, who played Chekhov in “Star Trek.”

8. In 1987, Kirk Cameron appeared in Like Father, Like Son, one of five body-switch comedies that opened within the span of a year. His co-star was Dudley Moore, who had suffered from a terminal degenerative brain disorder, progressive supranuclear palsy (which eventually took his life). The symptoms of the disease mimicked alcohol intoxication and delusional episodes. It was during one of these delusional episodes in which Cameron felt the presence of God inhabiting Moore. The episode played a significant role in Cameron’s conversion.

9. Cameron’s next film, Listen to Me (1989), involved a college debate team that ultimately debated abortion in the finale. Cameron wrote his own debate speech on behalf of the pro-life view, arguing that abortions are linked to significant increases in breast cancer and advanced aging.

10. During filming of Listen to Me in 1988, Cameron was involved in a love triangle, of sorts, with his co-star, Jami Gertz, who was at the time romantically involved with her Less than Zero co-star, Robert Downey, Jr. Downey points to Gertz’s decision to leave him for Cameron as the beginning of the drug habit that would derail his career in the 1990s.

11. In 1988, Kirk Cameron appeared in a Pepsi Super Bowl commercial in which Pepsi introduced their new tagline, “Taste like a Million.” Ironically, Cameron was paid $1 million for the spot, the most any actor up to that point had ever received for appearing in a commercial.

12. In 1994, Cameron starred in a WB sitcom, “Kirk,” which lasted only two years. Cameron helped to convert “Charles in Charge” star, Scott Baio — who was a frequent director of the series — to Christianity during that period. Baio, his “Charles in Charge” co-star, Willie Aames (also an evangelical Christian) and Cameron pitched an idea for a sitcom to ABC about three down-on-their-luck roommates — a gay man on public assistance, a drug addict, and a environmentalist free-spirit — who straightened out their lives after a religious awakening. According to Cameron, the network “laughed in their face.”

13. In 2000, Cameron starred in the first of his ambitious pro-Christianity films, Left Behind. In the movie, he plays a non-believer, Buck Williams, who finally accepts Jesus Christ and learns that the UN Secretary-General is the Anti-Christ. In reality, Cameron believes that the United Nations is behind a New World Order and that the Washington Monument represents the “reproductive organ of Baal or Satan.”

14. Before signing on to Left Behind, Cameron’s wife had been reading the novel upon which the movie was based. While reading the book, she fell asleep and had a vision that she and Cameron would be cast in the film. When she woke up, Iron Eagle was playing on the television. Several weeks later, Kirk Cameron was approached about starring in the film. Presciently, the third movie in the series also stars Iron Eagle’s Lou Gosset Jr.

15. In the 2008 film, Fireproof, Cameron’s wife, Chelsea Noble, had to act as the lead actress’ double during the kissing scene because Cameron would not kiss anyone else but his wife.

16. Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort co-founded the ministry, The Way of the Master, and co-host a television series of the same name. In 2010, Comfort sent out appointment cards to elderly people advising them of the date and time of their death, and informing them to contact evangelists to avoid going to hell.

17. Kirk Cameron believes that the banana disproves Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. He ties Darwin’s theory to Nazi eugenics.

18. Kirk Cameron developed a board game, “Intelligent Design versus Evolution,” that is meant to demonstrate that evolution is a hoax, that it is a “fairy-tale for adults.”

19. Cameron believes that all children should be home schooled and that women should have children by the age of 25.

20. Although Cameron believes that homosexuality is an “unnatural act,” in “necessary circumstances,” he advocates anal sex in couples as a means for a woman to avoid losing her virginity before marriage.





Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba.

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