The Disney Girl Who Said Hollywood Would “Kill” Her: Christy Carlson Romano’s Bombshell Memoir Is Out Today

For an entire generation of kids, Christy Carlson Romano was the gold standard of the perfect Disney Channel star. She was Ren Stevens, the straight A perfectionist big sister on Even Stevens. She was the voice of Kim Possible, the crime fighting teenage heroine. She was the wholesome face of the early 2000s Disney machine, all smiles and good grades.

Today, October 6, Romano is telling a very different story. Her memoir, Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Rise and Fall of a Child Star, published by Simon & Schuster, has hit the shelves, and it is packed with confessions that will shatter that squeaky clean image forever. Cocaine at Paris Hilton’s house. A brutal eating disorder. A feud with Shia LaBeouf. A boyfriend who ghosted her because she was not famous enough. The 42-year-old actress is done staying quiet, and what she has to say is explosive.

The Halloween Party at Paris Hilton’s House

The most shocking chapter of Romano’s book involves the first time she ever tried cocaine. According to an excerpt obtained by People and reported by Page Six, it happened at a Halloween party at Paris Hilton’s home.

Romano writes that a guest at the party, a woman she calls Edie and describes as a well connected assistant at a marketing firm, gave her the drug. Romano says she had never seen cocaine before that night, but she knew exactly what the white lines on the table were. She had always sworn she would never try it. That night, the vow broke.

After she inhaled it, she recalls that Edie and the other partygoers laughed about “getting the Disney girl to do blow for the first time.” That one detail might be the most heartbreaking line in the whole book. To everyone at that party, she was not a person having a vulnerable moment. She was a punchline. She was the Disney girl, and corrupting her was the entertainment.

“Just to Feel Something”: Her Battle With Bulimia

The cocaine was only one part of a much darker spiral. Romano writes that she became bulimic “just to feel something,” and that her weight dropped so low she was wearing a size 00.

This is not the first time she has spoken about her eating disorder. Back in October 2021, she opened up in a candid video on her YouTube channel, revealing that at one point she had dropped to a worrying 105 pounds. She described a daily cycle of drinking heavily, smoking cigarettes, barely eating, and sleeping through the day. “I look at pictures from that time and I just know how unhappy the lifestyle was for me,” she said.

Reading those words now, side by side with the new memoir, it is clear that the Disney years left scars that took decades to name. Behind every red carpet smile was a young woman who was quietly falling apart.

“Oil and Water”: The Shia LaBeouf Feud

One of the juiciest sections of the memoir, and the one getting the most buzz this week, is Romano’s account of her behind the scenes relationship with Even Stevens co-star Shia LaBeouf.

On screen, Ren and Louis Stevens were the classic bickering brother and sister. Off screen, Romano says the tension was just as real. “It was oil and water,” she confessed on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast this week, while promoting the book, as reported by Entertainment Weekly.

She was 14 and LaBeouf was 12 when they shot the pilot, and Romano says their clashing personalities never mixed. She described herself as a type A, New York raised kid who was exactly like her character Ren: know your lines, hit your marks, do not mess up. LaBeouf, she said, came from what she called a “vagrant, fun, but also very chaotic and very scary” upbringing. She believes their different childhoods made them incompatible from day one.

She also revealed that the tension was not helped by the adults around them. “It’s like the whole crew is constantly trying to pit us against each other, or pit Ren and Louis against each other, but then it bleeds over into real life,” she writes in the book. On set, she says, LaBeouf barely asked about her life, and she barely asked about his.

But in a surprising twist, Romano also gives LaBeouf genuine praise. She called him a “legend” for launching his own career at just eight years old by cold calling agents out of a phone book. “He needed it because of his childhood and the upbringing that he was having was so bad,” she said. “Somehow he had a dream and he made it happen for himself.” It is a rare moment of generosity in a chapter full of conflict, and it suggests the memoir is more nuanced than a simple tell all.

Ghosted Because She “Wasn’t Famous Enough”

If the LaBeouf feud is the juiciest chapter, the most painful one might be Romano’s story about her first real Hollywood romance. While promoting the book on Wednesday, she publicly opened up about dating her Cadet Kelly co-star Shawn Ashmore when she was 18. Emma Roberts just shared her own secret love story this week, but Romano’s tale is a far darker one.

“Shawn and I dated for the summer we filmed Cadet Kelly and for a few months after,” she wrote on Instagram, alongside a photo of them together on set. Then came the gut punch: “I was eventually ghosted and had heard ‘his team’ thought I wasn’t famous enough for us to keep dating. Hollywood is brutal for a young girl.”

It is worth noting that Ashmore has not publicly responded to the claim, and that Romano herself told E! News back in June 2022 that the two had only gone on a few dates, calling him a “true gentleman” and “a very nice guy.” The contrast between those two accounts tells its own story about how memories, and feelings, change with time. But Romano says this pain is exactly why she wrote the book: “to expose everything that actually happens in this business.”

Why She Walked Away From Los Angeles

After six months of sleeping all day and partying all night in Los Angeles, Romano says she knew she had to get out. In one of the memoir’s most quoted lines, she writes: “I can’t take the shallowness of Hollywood and clubs anymore. It’s going to kill me.”

She left. And unlike so many child stars who never found their way back, Romano rebuilt her life on her own terms. She married, became a mother of two, earned a degree, and built a successful career as a YouTube creator and podcast host, long before celebrity confessionals were fashionable. Johnny Depp’s own Hollywood comeback story shows how rare a second act like this really is. Her honesty about money, marriage, and mental health earned her a loyal audience that has stuck with her for years.

What This Memoir Means for Disney’s Darkest Era

Romano’s book arrives at a moment when the dark side of the child star era is finally being confronted. From the revelations in Jennette McCurdy’s memoir to the recent documentaries about the Nickelodeon and Disney years, audiences are finally ready to hear what it actually cost to be the perfect kid on television.

What makes Romano’s memoir different is that she is not just naming the damage. She is explaining the system that caused it: the crews that pitted children against each other, the parties that treated Disney girls as trophies, the industry that decided an 18-year-old was not famous enough to date. And she is doing it with the perspective of a woman who survived it and built something better. Reality TV has its own shocking celebrity pairings this week, but nothing compares to the real stories Romano is finally telling.

Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Rise and Fall of a Child Star is out now. If you grew up watching Even Stevens, or if you have ever wondered what was really happening behind the Disney curtain, this is the book you will be talking about all week.

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) offers support and resources.