Brandon ‘Bug’ Hall

Introduction

Brandon “Bug” Hall is a former American child actor best known for playing Alfalfa Switzer in the 1994 film “The Little Rascals.” After leaving Hollywood around 2020, he relocated his family to rural Arkansas, adopted what he describes as a “vow of poverty,” and has since been arrested twice — in Texas in 2020 on a misdemeanor inhaling charge, and in Ohio in 2026 for failing to appear in court — while drawing repeated public criticism for provocative statements, including a social-media ban in 2022. A November 2026 New York Post/Page Six retrospective framed his post-Hollywood life as a “fall from grace,” and within hours Hall was publicly defending a GoFundMe appeal that drew mockery — and a $2,000 donation from the girlfriend of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Days later the appeal had swelled more than $26,000 past its goal, been locked amid mass fraud reports, and been cleared by GoFundMe’s Trust and Safety investigation — with Hall refusing to return the excess.

Background Information

Hall was born Brandon Hall and rose to fame as a child in “The Little Rascals” (1994), in which he played the cowlicked, lovelorn Alfalfa. He went on to appear in “Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves,” “The Stupids,” and “American Pie Presents: The Book of Love,” and made guest appearances on shows including “Charmed,” “Cold Case,” the various “CSI” spinoffs, “Criminal Minds,” “Castle,” “Masters of Sex,” “Nikita,” and “Revolution.”

He is married to Jill DeGroff, with whom he has five children and a sixth on the way. Hall identifies as a “radical Catholic extremist” and has said he took “a vow of poverty,” donating his savings and most of his possessions. Since 2020 the family has lived near Mountain Home, Arkansas — first in a campervan with a water well and generator — while he builds a house with his own hydro-electrical dam, plumbing, and electrical systems.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Arrests on record, no convictions. The two arrests described here are documented in police reports and court filings. The 2020 misdemeanor charge was reported dropped before prosecution, and Hall later described the arrest as a “wake-up call.” The 2026 failure-to-appear charge ended with his release from custody without a sentence. Neither case produced a conviction. The November 2026 GoFundMe was locked after mass fraud reports, then cleared by GoFundMe’s Trust and Safety investigation; Hall declined to return the roughly $26,000 excess, and no authority has pursued a fraud claim.

Hall’s first arrest came in June 2020 in Weatherford, Texas. Police responded to a call shortly after 8 p.m. on June 20 reporting “someone near the dumpster huffing,” and officers said they found Hall in his hotel room surrounded by air-duster cans. He was booked at Parker County Jail on a misdemeanor charge of possession for use to inhale or ingest a volatile chemical, held on a $1,500 bond, and released the next day; his representative told EW the charges were being dropped. Hall later said he had been sober for fifteen years before the incident and called the arrest a wake-up call.

In 2022, Hall was temporarily banned from X after posting tweets in support of what he called marital duty and the corporal punishment of minors, according to Page Six. In September 2024 he drew a fresh wave of criticism when he announced the birth of his only son, Mark Athanasius Chad Anthony Hall-Barnett, referring to the baby as his “heir” — and, when a fan noted he already had daughters, replied: “I said heir, not dishwasher.”

His second arrest came in April 2026 in Ohio, when he was charged with failure to appear for a December 31, 2024 court date that stemmed from an October 29, 2024 traffic citation for driving without liability insurance. Reports place the arrest in Marion County, Ohio, and note he was ultimately released from custody without receiving a sentence.

The GoFundMe story escalated on November 9, 2026. Hall told Page Six the fundraiser — which had collected more than $26,000 above its $2,000 target — had been mass-reported for alleged fraud by critics of his donation appeals, and that GoFundMe locked the campaign, preventing him from withdrawing the money or shutting it down. He said he learned only afterward that the platform’s Trust and Safety investigation had cleared the fundraiser and would transfer the money within two to five days. The New York Post promoted the interview on X as Hall “defiantly refuses to return excess $26K donations despite GoFundMe backlash.” Asked why he would not return the overage, Hall said he never anticipated exceeding his goal and never promised to return the excess, calling the outcome “God’s will” and the money “a gift from God” that will buy farm animals, a tractor and a sawmill as the family works toward leaving their camper. In the same interview he revisited the 2020 arrest, describing a relapse after roughly twelve years of sobriety as “the worst day of my life” and saying he welcomes his mugshot being recirculated.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Each episode drew its own reaction. The 2020 arrest produced a released mugshot and national coverage of a beloved child star’s decline; the 2022 X ban was covered as part of a pattern of provocative posts about women and children; and the 2024 “heir” remark was widely criticized as sexist, with readers calling the remark demeaning to his daughters.

The November 2026 Page Six retrospective, which the New York Post promoted with a “fell from grace” headline, prompted a strongly negative reader response: commenters on the article criticized his family’s public fundraising and compared the household unfavorably to the Duggar family, while others mocked his trajectory from child star to off-grid penury.

Support has come from his audience as well. Ahead of his sixth child, Hall launched a GoFundMe on a Thursday in early November, writing that “it’s now six years since I self-cancelled” and that the family had fallen behind on “the few bills we have (phone, propane for the camper, and an unexpected electric hookup service fee)”; within days donors had given more than $23,000 against his original $2,000 goal. When critics on X told him to “get a real job” and to stop having children he could not afford, Hall replied, “I’m going to keep impregnating my wife 👍,” and to another who told him to “move to a small town and put your skills to work and get a job like everyone else,” he answered, “Nah. I’m busy building a farm and feeding my family and community 👍” — adding in a separate reply that “this was a rougher year too” and that he “mostly worked full time, while also working to prepare our new home site.” The fundraiser’s top donor was Gerelyn Gilbert-Soto, the wellness influencer who has dated Google co-founder Sergey Brin since 2023; her $2,000 gift alone covered Hall’s original goal. The refusal to return the excess kept the backlash burning: the fraud reports that briefly locked the fund collapsed once the platform cleared it, leaving critics with a fundraiser that ended roughly $26,000 over target and a subject who says he is keeping every dollar.

Current Status

Hall remains off the grid in Arkansas with his wife and five children — a sixth is due within weeks — living on donations and subsistence work while completing his self-built home. The disputed GoFundMe closed in his favor: the platform’s Trust and Safety investigation cleared the fundraiser after the mass fraud reports, and the balance — including the roughly $26,000 raised past the goal — is being transferred to the family, which Hall says he will keep as “a blessing.” The 2020 Texas charge never led to prosecution, and the 2026 Ohio failure-to-appear charge concluded with his release and no sentence. No pending criminal case against him was reported as of November 2026, and he continues to post religious and family content to his own channels, including the YouTube channel where the photo above originates.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Hall’s acting career effectively ended with his 2020 departure from Hollywood, which he has framed as deliberate — “I self-cancelled,” in his own words — trading a working-actor income for a vow of poverty. The arrests, the social-media ban and the GoFundMe saga have instead made him a recurring tabloid subject: the “Little Rascals” Alfalfa who became a “radical Catholic extremist” with a mugshot, a ban, and a fundraiser he says God would not let him close. Whether that arc reads as downfall or as the life he chose, it is now fixed in the public record largely apart from anything he filmed.

Sources

• Page Six, “‘Little Rascals’ star Brandon ‘Bug’ Hall refuses to return excess $26K donations despite GoFundMe backlash,” November 9, 2026 — source
• @nypost trigger tweet (refuses to return excess $26K donations), November 9, 2026 — source
• New York Post/Page Six, “How ‘Little Rascals’ star Brandon ‘Bug’ Hall fell from grace after Hollywood exit,” November 8, 2026 — source
• New York Post/Page Six, “‘Little Rascals’ star Brandon ‘Bug’ Hall defends GoFundMe after critics urge him to ‘get a job’: ‘I’m going to keep impregnating my wife’,” November 8, 2026 — source
• New York Post/Page Six, “Glamorous girlfriend of one of richest men in the world donates $2K to ‘Little Rascals’ star Brandon ‘Bug’ Hall’s GoFundMe,” November 8, 2026 — source
• Entertainment Weekly, “The Little Rascals Alfalfa star arrested for huffing air duster,” June 23, 2020 — source
• cleveland.com, “‘Little Rascals’ Alfalfa actor arrested,” April 2026 — source
• Us Weekly (via Yahoo Entertainment), “Inside Child Star Bug Hall’s Life Out of the Spotlight After Starring as Alfalfa in ‘Little Rascals’,” 2026 — source