Christy Carlson Romano said Shawn Ashmore ghosted her after they dated for the summer they filmed Cadet Kelly and for a few months after. On Wednesday, she tied the breakup to a claim that his team decided she was not famous enough to keep dating.
Romano’s Instagram allegation
“Shawn and I dated for the summer we filmed ‘Cadet Kelly’ and for a few months after,” Romano wrote on Instagram on Wednesday. She added, “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 post put a sharp edge on a story Romano has been telling in public for years: child stardom came with money, body pressure, and a short shelf life. She wrote that Hollywood is brutal for a young girl, and she said her upcoming book, Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Rise and Fall of a Child Star, was written to expose everything that actually happens in this business.
Cadet Kelly, 2002
Romano said the relationship began in the summer they filmed Cadet Kelly in 2002 and lasted a few months after. She was 18 at the time. That timeline matters because it places the allegation squarely inside the same Disney-era period that made her a recognizable young performer, and it gives her complaint a specific setting rather than a vague memory.
In 2021, Romano said she lost millions from her Disney earnings and said she was not a millionaire in any way, shape or form. In October 2023, she said she got breast implants as a teen after filming Cadet Kelly, adding that she and Sharon Romano looked at footage and that her mother told her, “Christy, if you want to get breast implants, I just want to let you know that’s an option.” Romano said, “I love my mom. … She was stage mom-ing that moment.”
Shawn Ashmore’s reply
A representative for Shawn Ashmore did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment. That leaves Romano’s version standing alone for now: she says she was ghosted after the relationship, and she says the reason she heard was that his team thought she was not famous enough.
Romano is using the book rollout to widen the frame beyond one breakup. Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Rise and Fall of a Child Star is set for release on Oct. 6, and the allegation lands as part of a larger public account of how young performers are marketed, judged, and dropped once the attention shifts. The sharper question is whether Shawn Ashmore or his team ever said what Romano says she heard; without that, the story remains her account, but it is now one she has put on the record.
