Christy Carlson Romano was paid half of Shia LaBeouf on 'Even Stevens'

Christy Carlson Romano says she was paid half of what Shia LaBeouf earned on Even Stevens, even though they were co-leads. 

“I was paid half of what Shia was paid; we were co-leads and had the same screen time,” the actress, 42, wrote on Instagram while promoting her memoir, Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Fall and Rise of a Child Star.

She posted a letter her mother, Sharon, wrote to Romano’s agent in 2000, asking for equal pay and admitting the family was deep in debt. 

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The letter reportedly reads that LaBeouf received $12,000 per episode and Romano $6,000. 

“By then, my paycheck was keeping us afloat,” Romano wrote.

She was careful not to criticise LaBeouf, now 40. 

“Shia earned every dollar,” she wrote, adding that the book is not about him or any other famous name. They were part of her story, she said, but never the story. 

The memoir, she said, is about “a girl who grew up too fast, and a business that decided she was worth half”. 

Romano played Ren Stevens, the older sister to LaBeouf’s Louis, on the Disney Channel sitcom, which ran for three seasons from 2000 to 2003.

She has previously described their relationship on set as “like oil and water”, and admitted she was once a bit salty about his success. 

The memoir came out on 6 October.

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