The 37-year-old former child star has found success in her new YouTube videos.
Christy Carlson Romano is both proud and very self aware about the content she's been creating lately. The 37-year-old former Disney Channel star has recently been making YouTube videos covering topics such as her sobriety, childhood stardom, financial struggles, and even her relationship with her former Even Stevens co-star, Shia LaBeouf.
"They are clickbait," she tells ET's Deidre Behar of the videos. "That's essentially what they are, except that they're not because I said they deliver on the promise of whatever I'm saying, but they don't do it in a way that hurts people."
For any trolls who might not be happy with the videos, Romano jokes, "You're not my demo!"
The former child star was first inspired to try a different tactic in her content after publishing an op-ed for Teen Vogue about her experiences growing up in the public eye as well as a TikTok video of herself doing a "mental health check-in."
"I was like, 'Wow, this works.' This became viral," she recalls. "This was some content that people reacted to. We kind of leaned into that, and we had a development meeting with just us and a couple other people on our team. We were like, 'Let's do this. Let's lean into it.' This is how it's happened."
The videos are filmed outdoors as Romano goes for walks near her Austin, Texas, home.
"It seemed more captivating, more authentic, more like, 'Hey, you're FaceTiming me, and I'm in the middle of my day, but let me take a moment out of my day and talk to you,'" she says of the format.
As for who is the face behind the camera, that's one secret Romano will never tell.
"We make certain oaths to people and I have made an oath to my husband [Brendan Rooney] that I would not tell whether it was him or anything," she shares. "I can't say anything. That is tricky... I need to keep some mystery to this so that people keep clicking."
As for if there are any topics or people that are off-limits when it comes to her videos, Romano says she is choosing to keep some of her relationships private.
"There are a couple people that I would love to share my experiences about that I probably won't just because it would violate my friendship with them or my potential friendship with them," she says. "I think that some people don't want to be talked about and some people don't mind it. Like when I did the Shia video, in my heart I know that he doesn't care."
Noting that she never got a response from LaBeouf, Romano speculated that the actor has, in fact, seen the video she made about him.
"Maybe Shia saw the Shia video because Shia's very in touch with all the art that's out there and all the performance stuff and all the things," she says. "I'm sure his people are probably on what's going on with him, but I can't say that anyone else has."
Moving forward in her life, Romano remains open to the idea of returning to the entertainment industry.
"I am falling back in love with the entertainment industry," she admits. "I think that having my own input and having sort of being the master of my own future is really liberating. And whether that stays within the content creation or it expands into more highly produced things and narrative content and feature films."
Romano adds, "Having two young children makes it very hard to be on set for 12 hours a day."
To subscribe to Romano's YouTube channel, click here.
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