Christina Carlson Romano she offered an unfiltered look at how she used drugs and went out to clubs in an attempt to get attention after her child star days.
“I was drinking too much, solve your problems by partying and going out and having fun [kind of person]”, Carlson Romano, 42, recalled in Us‘ exclusive clip from the Tuesday, September 29, episode of the “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast.
host Amanda Hirsch asked about Carlson Romano’s first time trying cocaine at a star-studded party, and the actress replied, “I was old to start trying cocaine. I was, like, 23.”
Despite mentioning the incident in her upcoming memoir, Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Rise and Fall of a Child StarCarlson Romano recalled that he didn’t like cocaine.
“I think what I liked was the attention I got for doing it in front of people. You feel good doing it now, in the room with people,” she continued. “Everybody’s like, ‘I made a Disney girl do cocaine for the first time.'”
Carlson Romano is known for her roles from the early 2000s, including Even Stevens, Kim can and Cadet Kelly.
“I didn’t care [if people found out]. At first, I had been clubbing for a while just trying to get noticed and it never happened,” she recalled. “Before Instagram, you had no control over your image.”
Carlson Romano was determined to shape the public’s perception of her, saying, “At that point, I had been clubbing since I was 16. But I’ve been clubbing really hard to try to get noticed since I was 21.”
She continued, “[It was] to be seen by the right people or going to the right places… But the irony is that I didn’t have a publicist or a stylist or anyone to guide me. I don’t know why that thought never occurred to me to work with people.”
Elsewhere in the scene, Carlson Romano recalled an embarrassing moment when she came close Lindsay Lohan hoping to bond with the actress amid her conflict Hilary Duff.
The interaction didn’t lead to the friendship Carlson Romano had hoped for—but it did teach her an important lesson.
“I kick myself because it’s a shameful story but we all have things,” she said. “And that’s what I hope will make him recycle the book, where it says, ‘Foot in mouth. You were dumb and now you’ve learned from that.'”