Make Page Six a Preferred Source Christy Carlson Romano called out her “Cadet Kelly” co-star Shawn Ashmore for allegedly ghosting her after his team deemed her “not famous enough.”
“Shawn and I dated for the summer we filmed ‘Cadet Kelly’ and for a few months after,” the actress, who was 18 at the time, wrote via Instagram Wednesday.
“I was eventually ghosted and had heard ‘his team’ thought I wasn’t famous enough for us to keep dating. Hollywood is brutal for a young girl.”
The actress concluded the post by saying she wrote her upcoming book, “Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Rise and Fall of a Child Star,” to “expose everything that actually happens in this business.” The book is set for release on Oct. 6.
A rep for Ashmore did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
In the comments thread, fans sympathized with Romano, with one person writing, “If it makes you feel any better, I remember you and not him, at all 🤷🏻♀️.”
Another remarked, “I just like that 20 years later here you are and where’s Shawn? 👀” while a third chimed in, “I’m So sorry 😢. Hollywood can be great or it can be harsh unfortunately.”
Even prior to her book, the “Even Stevens” actress, now 42, has maintained an active and candid public profile, through which she’s shared many of her experiences in the entertainment industry.
In an October 2023 podcast interview, the “Kim Possible” voice actress divulged that she got breast implants as a teen due to “body image issues big time” after filming 2002’s “Cadet Kelly.”
“At the time obviously, I was coming of age in Hollywood … and my mom and me looked at footage or some s–t,” she recalled on an episode of the “Vulnerable” podcast, referring to her mother and former manager, Sharon Romano.
“She was like, ‘Christy, if you want to get breast implants, I just want to let you know that’s an option.’”
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The actress, however, defended her mother as being “from a whole different generation,” adding, “I love my mom. … She was stage mom-ing that moment.”
Back in 2021, she shared that she lost “millions” from her high-profile Disney earnings as a child actress in a video shared to YouTube.
“My biggest thing about child actors, you aren’t told that the work is going to slow down,” she said. “In fact, I was told the opposite, specifically by my mom, some of my team, even my money manager at the time.”
Now, she said, after spending money on various “big ticket items,” she clarified that she is “not a millionaire in any way, shape or form.”
She’s also spoken out about her feelings on her former “Even Stevens” co-star Shia LaBeouf — who went on to big screen fame in films including “Holes” and “Transformers” — comparing her “salty” attitude to “sibling rivalry.”
“I felt a little jilted from the whole situation,” she said during a 2021 YouTube video.
“I was like, ‘Here he is. Making a big ol’ splash in Hollywood and here I am, I chose to go to college and there’s consequences that come to that,’ but there was definitely an undercurrent of regret … [and] comparison,” she confessed, adding, “Sibling rivalry, if you will.”
Romano has promised to pull back the curtain on her relationship with LaBeouf even further in her book. In an Instagram post on Tuesday, she shared an affectionate throwback photo with the “Honey Boy” actor and his father, Jeffrey LaBeouf.
“Shia and I spent 3 years of our lives right next to each other in adjoining trailers, both of us enduring painful childhoods,” she captioned the snapshot.
“If only we could have been there for each other, but we were each going through our own battles and could barely take care of ourselves,” she added, noting that she’s “finally sharing everything” in her memoir.
“It might anger some people, but I don’t care anymore. If my story can help just one person, it will have been worth it.”
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