Former Disney Channel star Christy Carlson Romano has spoken out about the price of young celebrity fame following the death of Hayden Panettiere.
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While reflecting on the struggles Panettiere faced before her sudden passing at 36, Romano described childhood stardom to brain disease CTE.
“The former child actor exists in a category the world does not know how to hold,” she wrote for ELLE. “We are children when the public wants to feel protective of us, professionals when the industry wants to profit from us, and spoiled celebrities when we eventually show symptoms of having been both.”
Romano continued by stating, “Early fame is like CTE. Not as a diagnosis. As a way of thinking about repeated impact. We now have language for youth sports: protocols, helmets, parents worried about concussions. But we have almost no language for what happens when stress, scrutiny, rejection, adult pressure, and the collapse of privacy become the architecture of a childhood.”
The Even Stevens alum also pointed out that child actors are often treated as “lucky,” “cute,” and “talented” exceptions.
Addressing Panettiere, Romano wrote, “[I’m] crushed. Another performer I grew up with, gone too soon.”
She then wrote, “I am thinking of Hayden, her daughter, the people who loved her in real life—not as a headline, not as a symbol. I am thinking of my own daughter still upstairs, still crawling into my bed afraid of the dark, and how badly I want her to grow up in a world where children are not asked to become consumable before they become whole.”
Panettiere suddenly died on August 16. The late actress began her acting career as a baby. She starred in various films, including Remember the Titans, Scream 4, and 6.
She previously spoke out about her struggles with postpartum depression and addiction.
Panettiere Said She Was ‘Groomed’ and ‘Pushed Into’ Acting As a Child
Just three months before her death, Panettiere opened up about her acting career.
“I was groomed. I was like a little soldier, and I always have been,” she explained. “No was never an option. It was just, ‘Here are your scenes, here’s your dialogue, memorize it, hit the marks, do what your director tells you to do.’ I took my marching orders.”
Things shifted for her as time went on. “When I started self-harming in the form of substance abuse,” she recalled. “My people-pleasing had built up and up, it was anger and anxiety and frustration. My life revolved around other people, and I lived to make other people happy, and I was the last one on the list.”
“The pressure of that built and built and just exploded,” Panettiere pointed out. “I started figuring out any way I could get through it. Sometimes they’ll say in treatment that, believe it or not, our addictions probably saved us at a certain point.”