Alyson Stoner’s life radically and irreversibly modified within the aisle of a grocery retailer in 2002. Every week after the MTV premiere of Missy Elliott’s “Work It” music video, which featured a 9-year-old Stoner dancing for a couple of temporary seconds in pigtails and a pink tracksuit, a stranger approached the kid with a request.
“Are you the little white woman within the Missy video?” the person requested, earlier than including, “Are you able to do the dance?” The younger dancer obliged, quickly surrounded by prospects watching the spectacle. This was the start of what Stoner, who makes use of they/them pronouns, calls “everlasting efficiency mode.”
Stoner’s profession as a toddler star took off from there, they usually turned a mainstay on the Disney Channel for a few years, showing in Camp Rock and Mike’s Tremendous Quick Present however by no means totally breaking out with their very own collection or film like fellow Mouse Home stars Miley Cyrus or Demi Lovato. It’s an uncommon trajectory, and Stoner’s new e book, Semi-Properly-Adjusted Regardless of Actually The whole lot, isn’t the everyday child performer memoir. It’s OK in the event you assume so at first, although. It’s all a part of the plan.
‘Copy-and-paste downward spirals’
Stoner says they observed a collection of latest memoirs and documentaries highlighting a “repeated sample of former baby performers … experiencing copy-and-paste downward spirals,” however nobody had but unpacked the ecosystem that creates that sort of sample, nor tried to intervene and stop it from persevering with to hurt kids.
“I believed, ‘I wish to not solely share my lived experiences — sure, all the juicy particulars from the units rising up — but in addition join new dots for folks throughout media, tradition, baby growth and the trade,” Stoner, now 32, tells Yahoo over Zoom. “Of us may present as much as learn in regards to the childhood chaos of all of it, however I hope they keep for the cultural critique.”
Alyson Stoner’s memoir, Semi-Properly-Adjusted Regardless of Actually The whole lot, is out now. (Photograph illustration: Yahoo Information; photograph: Maarten de Boer/Getty Pictures)
Stoner remains to be an entertainer, they usually acknowledge that their work onscreen might be what them from. However they’re additionally a psychological well being practitioner. For each reveal of childhood trauma or candid story a few acquainted identify of their e book, there’s a revelation about one thing damaged within the leisure trade and a proposal to repair it.
Realizing that fame and trauma could be the draw for lots of readers, Stoner labored with a writing supervisor to strategize about what precisely to incorporate. It’s written chronologically and guided by Stoner’s internal monologue over time, pulling immediately from journal entries.
With that in thoughts, the vulnerability on show is spectacular. Stoner particulars heart-wrenching tales from their life: private and non-private scrutiny that contributed to an consuming dysfunction that they sought therapy for in rehab, a tumultuous house life with an abusive stepfather and alcoholic mom, run-ins with stalkers and extortionists, rape and suicidal ideation. There are even tales in regards to the internal workings of Hollywood and its stars that turned tabloid fodder the identical day the e book was launched.
However that’s simply Stoner’s actual life. They’re working with what they’ve obtained.
“There are methods you may discuss your direct, private expertise and nonetheless honor the humanity of everybody concerned whereas calling for some accountability, whereas accepting that there are penalties past my management, it doesn’t matter what I do or don’t say,” Stoner says. “So I needed to be sure that though the reality isn’t at all times well mannered, I might nonetheless ship it with integrity … if I’m going to put in writing a memoir, now’s the time to get it [all] off my chest.”
‘We’re talking about kids as commodified merchandise’
Although the Disney Channel stars of at the moment have a brand new playbook, Stoner says their learnings from childhood fame are extra related than ever.
“Anybody with a Wi-Fi connection and social media profile can cope with challenges associated to privateness, to security, to parasocial relationships, psychological well being challenges resulting from our tech use,” they are saying.
In June, I noticed Stoner converse on a panel at VidCon, an annual conference for content material creators and their followers. Their bravery caught with me. Stoner interjected as specialists have been discussing how the child influencer trade might shield the younger and well-known, talking clinically and professionally in regards to the legal guidelines and rules in place to guard them.
“I do wish to floor the dialog within the actuality that we’re talking about kids as commodified merchandise for the time being. I used to be one in every of them,” they stated onstage. “There are well-meaning folks in all areas of the [entertainment] trade, [but] the whole system of it’s warped right here … we’re speaking a few baby who can not legally consent, who doesn’t have authorized rights to regulate what their guardian shares of them.”
Alyson Stoner appeared in 2003’s Cheaper by the Dozen. (twentieth Century Fox Movie Corp/Courtesy Everett Assortment)
Stoner introduced humanity to a hot-button difficulty typically mentioned by the folks revolving round and cashing in on well-known kids. That they had made their level — youngsters aren’t merchandise, nor do they know what may influence them in a while in life.
I requested them about it a month in a while our name.
“I believe any string of experiences that’s too overwhelming for any younger particular person will take its toll in a single form or type. You might not at all times be capable of acknowledge it immediately, as a result of younger folks oftentimes wish to please the adults round them.” Stoner explains. “Additionally they don’t have any different map of actuality to match their expertise towards. So no matter we normalize for them is what turns into the patterns that dictate their trajectory.”
I considered the early chapters of Stoner’s e book, during which they describe the fixed ache and rejection of the audition course of as a toddler actor. On a airplane to Hollywood for a collection of TV pilot auditions at 7 years previous, Stoner remembers considering, “I simply wish to present all of them I’m particular … I higher make it rely.” So as to really feel good, they needed to efficiently e book initiatives again and again.
Alyson Stoner with Kevin Jonas, Joe Jonas, Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas on the premiere of Camp Rock in 2008. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Pictures)
Whereas assembly with their agent, they have been inspired to change their look and be taught extra particular expertise to develop into extra marketable.
“It didn’t register that I used to be being groomed to be offered. I used to be not a toddler; I used to be a commodity … bodily magnificence — coupled with excessive versatility— elevated my price ticket,” Stoner writes of their memoir.
In 2025, youngsters don’t want an agent or auditions to expertise this. Anybody who’s posting on-line can. Drawing on her psychological well being experience, Stoner tells Yahoo that younger individuals are dropping the chance to have a “play-based childhood,” the place they’re allowed to fail and experiment in non-public, giving them time and area to course of what they’re going by and higher “discover equilibrium after intense experiences.”
“It’s when it turns into a continual and constant expertise with no respite that we begin to see younger folks creating their very own coping methods,” Stoner says. That may result in consuming issues and dangerous obsessions. For baby social media stars, it’d even be worse.
“They’re not portraying a personality … that is really the literal commodification of their humanity. And that’s price spending a while reflecting on,” they are saying.
The plan to cease the spiral
The extra I talked to Stoner and examine their traumatic experiences as a toddler star, the extra I used to be stunned that they have been nonetheless in present enterprise. I might have run for the hills to by no means take into consideration this once more. I used to be an enormous fan of Stoner once we have been each youngsters, and I by no means thought-about why their disappearance from Disney may need been strategic till they went viral in a 2021 YouTube put up in regards to the “toddler to coach wreck industrial advanced” that they “narrowly survived.”
The explanation Stoner isn’t working away from the leisure trade completely is pretty easy, however perplexing — and it speaks volumes about their power. Their “distinctive and sudden upbringing” gave them an understanding of each kids and Hollywood, they inform me.
Alyson Stoner at Disney’s Phineas and Ferb Season 5 premiere in 2025. (Katie Flores/Selection by way of Getty Pictures)
“I’m hoping that I can maintain the center in a method that permits folks on all sides to have the ability to hear one another … so we will take into consideration these items holistically and at all times … heart the truth that kids should not simply mini adults,” Stoner says. “Their brains and our bodies are at literal totally different developmental levels and phases.”
The kid star industrial advanced desperately must be rebooted. Dialogue and laws assist, however Stoner has a sensible and actionable plan. They created the Artist Wellbeing Necessities, a toolkit for performers and fogeys to be taught in regards to the pitfalls and potential dangers. It’s made up of over 50 movies about particular experiences that performers undergo, from studying to get into and out of character to managing audition rejection, and the way they influence different areas of their lives, like funds and schooling.
“I’m hoping [that material] is one thing that turns into standardized as a preventative useful resource, similar to anybody would get in the event that they’re onboarding to a brand new job,” they are saying.
Perhaps Stoner’s need to remain in and overhaul an trade they “narrowly survived” is much less of an act of defiance than a real calling. Future is never this obvious exterior of the Disney films Stoner as soon as acted in, however their real-life story is much extra compelling.
