Christy Carlson Romano is getting candid about the pay disparities on Disney‘s Even Stevens.
The actress, who played Ren Stevens, the older sister to Shia LaBeouf‘s Louis Stevens on the family sitcom, opened up about her past as a child star in her new memoir, Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Fall and Rise of a Child Star.
A few days after its Oct. 6 release, Romano took to Instagram to offer a peek at one of the stories featured in the book, specifically about getting paid half of what her male costar, LaBeouf, made on Even Stevens, which ran for three seasons from 2000 to 2003.
“I was a kid and the female lead on Even Stevens. I was paid half of what Shia was paid; we were co-leads and had the same screen time. While writing my memoir, I dug through thousands of old photos and letters and found this,” she wrote. Romano also shared a throwback photo of her, LaBeouf and her mom, Sharon, in addition to a letter her mom sent to her agent in 2000.
“My mom wrote it to my agent in 2000, asking for equal pay and admitting we were deep in debt,” the Kim Possible star continued. “By then, my paycheck was keeping us afloat. My mom was fighting for me, and she was also fighting for a household that depended on a teenage girl. It took me years to understand I could love her for advocating for me and still wish I had gotten to just be a kid. Shia earned every dollar, and this book is not about him or any other famous name you might recognize. They were part of my story. They were never the story. The story is a girl who grew up too fast, and a business that decided she was worth half. If you grew up taking care of the people who were supposed to take care of you, I wrote this book for you.”
In Once Upon a Trainwreck, Romano “reveals what childhood fame cost her, the fantasies she had to unlearn and the ongoing story of finding her way back to herself,” according to the book’s description.
Even Stevens also starred Tom Virtue, Donna Pescow, A.J. Trauth and Nick Spano. The show centered on the sibling rivalry and clashing personalities of the two younger Stevens children, Ren and Louis, living in suburban Sacramento, California.