Christy Carlson Romano is ‘crushed’ over death of Hayden Panettiere

A former child star is calling for greater protection of ‘the children paid to make the world smile’ as she mourns the loss of Hayden Panettiere. 

Christy Carlson Romano, who rose to fame on the Disney series Even Stevens, reflected on the price child stars pay in an essay published in the wake of Panettiere’s death.

Both Romano, 42, and Panettiere were both kids when they became celebrities. 

‘I picked up my phone. Hayden Panettiere died. Crushed. Another performer I grew up with, gone too soon,’ she wrote for Elle. 

‘I am thinking of Hayden, her daughter, the people who loved her in real life—not as a headline, not as a symbol,’ she ended her column with. 

Panettiere was just days away from celebrating her 37th birthday when she was found ᴅᴇᴀᴅ at an Airbnb in Greenville, South Carolina. In a recording of the 911 call, she was described as ‘unresponsive’ and in ‘cardiac arrest’ after a suspected overdose.

Former child star Christy Carlson Romano, right, is calling for greater protection of ‘the children paid to make the world smile’ as she mourns the loss of Hayden Panettiere, second from left. Pictured in 2004

Carlson rose to fame as a child in the hit Disney series, Even Stevens

Now Romano is sounding the alarm over the kids who become famous ‘before our frontal lobes have fully formed.’

‘Is it any wonder so many of us struggle with addiction? The industry gives us the wound and then acts surprised when we reach for something to treat it,’ she wrote. 

To Romano, early stardom is akin to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a brain disease known to afflict football players as a result of repeated head trauma. 

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She said: ‘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.’

For the last few years, Romano has been outspoken about her experiences in Hollywood – an operation she describes as ‘grief with a mission.’ 

According to her, there’s a lack of accountability over who is truly at fault for the challenges child stars face.

‘Calling out incongruence in the only community I was raised to know is not bitterness. It is grief with a mission. Responsibility gets pᴀssed around. Stage parents blame producers, producers blame parents, networks blame culture, and culture then blames the child when the child becomes an adult in pain,’ she stated in her article.

Carlson and fellow former child star Shia LaBeouf both starred in the Mouse House comedy show 

Now Romano is sounding the alarm over the kids who become famous ‘before our frontal lobes have fully formed’

But by the time accountability is even called for, it’s already too late for the child star, now a ‘young performer’ who is ‘no longer cute enough to protect.’  

‘They are a cautionary tale. A headline. A person expected to be grateful for the extraordinary childhood that may have cost them an ordinary self for life. They can’t even qualify as a statistic because not enough formal research has been done on this issue,’ she wrote.

‘We put youth athletes in helmets and pads. We invented entire sciences around protecting them from long-term damage. Why can’t we pad the children paid to make the world smile?’

Both Panettiere and Romano have been outspoken about their experiences growing up on camera. 

During an appearance at Harmony Gold to promote her memoir just three months ago, Panettiere remembered the audition room as a ‘dark, cold’ area filled with judgement. 

‘Why can’t we pad the children paid to make the world smile?’ Romano asked. Above, Panettiere in 1998

Panettiere, pictured in 2022, was just a week away from celebrating her 37th birthday when she died Sunday in Greenville, South Carolina from a suspected ‘overdose’ followed by cardiac arrest

‘I had my first idenтιтy crisis. I remember exactly where I was standing, I was standing in my bedroom at 12 years old, and I was existing either playing characters or in and out of an audition room,’ she said.

The audition room ‘can be the most brutal experience,’ adding that it is ‘like this dark cold room, and just this row of people judging you.’

Panettiere’s pᴀssing was announced Sunday by her father Skip Panettiere, who said in a statement: ‘It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic pᴀssing of our beloved Hayden.

‘She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her – and to the millions who watched her onscreen. We ask for privacy as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss.’

Authorities in Greenville, South Carolina, subsequently said that officials responded to an apartment in the area after receiving a report of an ‘unresponsive female’ via a possible ‘drug overdose,’ subsequently determined to be Panettiere.

Officials, who attempted lifesaving measures prior to declaring the actress deceased, said that no signs of trauma or foul play were evident in their probe into the Panettiere’s death, which remains ongoing.