Yahoo Entertainment
Former Disney star Christy Carlson Romano says early fame fueled financial issues, alcoholism and more: ‘The industry is a workplace for adults’
Christy Carlson Romano laughs about it now: that time she dropped a lot of the cash she’d earned, beginning as a teen on Disney shows like Even Stevens and Kim Possible and playing Belle on Broadway in Beauty and the Beast, on a crystal. It wasn’t at all funny in the moment, though. “I think it was like 21 when things started to get really complicated with my finances,” Romano, now 37, tells Yahoo Entertainment, “I was making all this money and, rather than invest it in a house or invest it in… you know, passive income and build up my portfolio — like, that was not a concept — I was a little bit spiraling in a way that I was confused about the value of the money that I had. So I didn’t really understand when I started seeing a psychic.” While her meetings with the psychic were initially “very chill and very relaxed,” they soon began to make her feel like her life depended on her purchasing certain things. The crystal was one of the items. “It was a big, big mistake. I think it cost like $60,000 or something crazy,” she says. “I thought it was a pretty rational decision. And, in doing so, I’ve realized… it was silly! It takes a long time to learn that when you’re in your 20s, that’s for sure.” In May 2019, Romano explained more of what led her to that point in an essay for Teen Vogue, which was titled My Private Breakdown. She said that while she had dreamed about going to school after the show ended in 2003, the reality was much tougher than she had envisioned. “A tape inside my head softly began to play, telling me I wasn’t good enough in either the normal or entertainment world,” she wrote. “My personal value was irrelevant until validated by my most recent accomplishment.”
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