Christy Carlson Romano on Child Fame, CTE, and the Death of Hayden Panettiere
Christy Carlson Romano has published an essay on Elle's website reflecting on the cost of child stardom, days after the death of fellow actor Hayden Panettiere.
Panettiere died on 16 August 2026 at the age of 36. Police said there were no signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances, though her death remains under investigation, according to Variety. Panettiere had written openly in her memoir about addiction struggles that followed her teen stardom.
Romano and Panettiere both broke through in 2000 — the year Even Stevens and Remember the Titans premiered. Romano starred as Ren Stevens on all three seasons of Even Stevens (2000–2003), opposite Shia LaBeouf, and reprised the role in The Even Stevens Movie. She also voiced the title character on Kim Possible across four seasons.
In her essay — an excerpt published on Elle's site, with Variety reporting on its contents on 19 August 2026 — Romano compared the experience of being a child star to suffering Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma in contact-sport athletes. The comparison is hers, drawn from her own experience; she did not claim a medical diagnosis.
Romano's essay and Panettiere's death have brought renewed attention to the pressures faced by children who work in film and television — an industry where the performers are minors, the contracts are binding, and the audience expects a finished product.
Panettiere was known to audiences for Heroes, Nashville, and the Scream franchise. Romano has spoken publicly in recent years about her own post-child-stardom experience, including stepping back from acting and rebuilding a career on her own terms.
For fans who grew up watching both performers, the essay lands as something both personal and pointed — one former child star naming, in her own words, what she believes the work took from her, published in the shadow of another's death.
