Christy Carlson Romano said Shia LaBeouf had a one-sided beef with fellow Disney Channel star Hilary Duff.
Romano claimed her “Even Stevens” co-star constantly spoke badly about Duff because of Duff’s Disney Channel show, “Lizzie McGuire,” competing with “Even Stevens” when it came to ratings.
“Hilary had no clue about that,” Romano recalled during her recent appearance on “The Joe Vulpis Podcast.” I’m sure she was doing her own thing, but he would always be kind of like trash-talking Lizzie McGuire.”
She said of LaBeouf, “He was very competitive.”
Romano explained why LaBeouf wanted so badly to be the top show on the Disney Channel.
“He had to be the number one show because I think his life depended on that show doing well,” she said. “He had a rough upbringing and I think, like, he needed that show to do well for him.”
Romano said she’s no longer in contact with LaBeouf — nor does she want to be.
“I don’t really want to talk to him … I’m fine with it,” she said.
‘When good stuff happens to him, I root for him. If bad stuff happens, I pray for him,” she added. “But at the same time, like, I don’t need to know him.”
Romano, 42, and LaBeouf, 40, played brother and sister Ren and Louis Stevens on “Even Stevens,” which aired from 2000 to 2003.
Romano has been promoting her memoir, “Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Rise and Fall of a Child Star” — released Oct. 6 — in which she shared that she was paid half what LaBeouf was paid for “Even Stevens.”
In an Instagram post earlier this month, Romano shared a throwback photo of herself, LaBeouf and her mom, Sharon. writing, “I was a kid and the female lead on ‘Even Stevens.’ I was paid half of what Shia was paid; we were co-leads and had the same screen time.”
The “Cadet Kelly” star also shared a letter her mom sent to her agent in 2000, revealing that LaBeouf was earning $12,000 per episode while she made $6,000.
But Romano said that LaBeouf “earned every dollar,” and that ultimately, her memoir was not about him or other famous people she writes about.
“They were part of my story. They were never the story,” she said. “The story is a girl who grew up too fast and a business that decided she was worth half.”
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