Christy Carlson Romano reimagines her creative role
Christy Carlson Romano has led quite a life. From child stardom to embarking on a career as a content creator, she’s gone through a lot in the public eye. The latter role, however, has seen her in a place of deeper self-discovery. Now having hosted numerous podcasts, cofounded a podcast production company, and currently building two Adobe courses, she’s on track to expand her business and herself.
Beginning as a child actor on Broadway, Carlson Romano made her most well-known work at Disney beginning at 14, playing Ren Stevens on the television show Even Stevens, voicing the animated title character on Kim Possible, and co-starring in the original movie, Cadet Kelly, with Hilary Duff.
She left Hollywood twice, once when she was 18 for her initial stint at Barnard College, and again when she was 30. Her credits in the entertainment industry are sprinkled over many years, whether for acting, directing, or providing the voice for audiobooks; she has even penned a novel. The transition from well-known child star to adult actor proved to be difficult, not only given the rat race of cultural relevance, but also due to the lack of privacy and inherent struggles with identity that go along with being a public figure from a young age.
She met her now-husband and creative business partner Brendan Rooney while the two were studying Film Studies and Screenwriting, respectively, at Barnard College in 2011. They were engaged later that year and married on New Year’s Eve, 2013. The couple’s first daughter was born in 2016 and Carlson Romano came into the world of free baby goods and sponsored content. Due to new motherhood, her role as a public figure began to shift.
“I was truly starting to scratch the surface of this like, really fascinating, privileged world.
And I was like, ‘Oh my God, I have value and what does that even look like?’’’ she recalled. This segued into other kinds of content creation and saw her partner with Rooney to meet the marketplace.
“He realized that, technically, like this new mom and pop shop that people used to do, like, on the corner, like a bodega or something, it’s now digital,” she mused. “It’s now the Instagram husband or co-founder partnership that we eventually had.”
She recalled having to do some convincing to get Rooney on board. “I had to beg him, but I wore him down,” she laughed.
In mid-2019, after the birth of their second daughter, they launched her first YouTube show, Christy’s Kitchen Throwback. Alongside creating shows, Carlson Romano posted topical pop cultural reflections as well as more confessional content to her YouTube channel, which often saw her speaking about her experiences in Hollywood and beyond. She opened up about everything from relationships with fellow Disney stars to her alcohol addiction, offering herself to the world in an entirely new way. In 2022, the couple created the podcast Vulnerable, which similarly tapped into this revealing format that featured guests like former child stars Alyson Stoner and Abigail Breslin.
“At the time, mental health and talking about it and destigmatizing everyone's different journeys was really topical,” Carlson Romano explained.
Stepping into the role of content creator gave Carlson Romano space to not only connect with an audience – after incessantly being included in the “Where are they now?” news cycle – but also begin sharing her story in a way she found empowering.
“Growing up in that Y2K moment of child stardom on TV, it was a really interesting time where you basically didn’t get to speak for yourself,” she acknowledged. “You were meant to play a character because the kids that were watching you had to know you as the character, not as you.”
Eight months after launching Vulnerable, Carlson Romano and Rooney cofounded their podcast company, PodCo. While managing the logistics of studio in Los Angeles and seeing an opportunity in providing a platform for other creators with whom they’d already connected, the duo decided to give production a go, beginning with the shows Wizards of Waverly Pod and Ned’s Declassified. Carlson Romano maintained a strong presence as a host across several shows, while Rooney stepped in as CEO.
“Personally, the idea of it was, hey, let's empower other people,” Carlson Romano asserts. By uplifting creators that were new to the podcast base and didn’t necessarily have the budget to support shows themselves, PodCo provided sets, social media assets, and strategies to pair with the experiences of the hosts. Bringing in other voices, Carlson Romano saw the advent of PodCo as a vector of mutual benefit and collaboration. As PodCo has taken form, Adobe has been used throughout its rise to create a sleek look for what Carlson Romano insists is still a small operation.
“My team has been able to implement the Adobe suite and the features that we implement keep our content looking top-notch and probably, like, some of the best in visual podcasting,” she declared. “It’s difficult to, like, level up when it comes to being a content creator and even from the get-go, we've always been using Adobe to be, like, ‘What are the tools that we have as independents to make us look like we're top dog?’”
It's worked so well that Carlson Romano says that people think PodCo is bigger than it is. The team, which currently stands at no more than 10, including Carlson Romano and Rooney.
“Adobe is that b*tch, essentially,” she mused. “It's gonna give you what you need.”
Eventually the family landed in Austin, Texas in late 2020, after Carlson Romano and Rooney fell in love with the city while driving cross-country after Carlson Romano’s graduation from Barnard in 2015. The inherent magnetism of Austin left an impression on the couple — its natural beauty, the space available, and a “come as you are” attitude all made it a more sustainable landing place than New York or Los Angeles. It was also, most notably, shielded from the scrutiny and hustle cultures of the other cities.
“For her especially, being away from entertainment hubs, has actually allowed her to become more creative and find herself,” said Rooney.
It’s an ever-unfolding process. Currently on tap for Carlson Romano is a recently filmed reality show and a forthcoming memoir. In her own unique balance of public living, she continues to chip away at her version of the becoming we are all tasked with.
“I’m getting to know myself publicly and privately all at the same time, so I’m in it with everyone else who is online chronically,” she admitted. “Sometimes an identity crisis lasts for decades.”