Before our interview, Alyson Stoner walked themself through three “Cs.”
First, they reflected on choice. “I remind myself that every conversation is an invitation to answer, but there’s no obligation,” they tell me over Zoom from Los Angeles. “That can be really challenging for a recovering people pleaser.” Then they tapped into curiosity, releasing any judgments they have about themself or assumptions they may have about me, the interviewer. Last, they checked in with capacity: If my mind and body were a battery, what percentage am I at? What color is my mood? How quickly are my thoughts racing, zero to 100?
“That just helps me understand what I’m showing up with and which grounding tools I could use, should an interview go sideways or I need some kind of support,” Stoner explains. Having read Semi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything—their new memoir, out today, about the mental and physical toll of child stardom—I can think of a few instances when that might’ve been handy. (Let’s just say there’s an Ellen anecdote that tracks.) Stoner adds that they’ll also “shake off” after we talk, to transition out of media mode. On top of having a book to promote, they also have a mental health company, Movement Genius, to run.
Sure, it might sound like a lot of ritual, especially during a busy press season. But Stoner, now 32, learned the hard way how important it is “to create a sense of a contained experience” so triggers don’t stack throughout the day.
The roots of that lesson are documented throughout Semi-Well-Adjusted, with intimate stories from auditions and sets like Missy Elliott’s “Work It” video, Camp Rock, Cheaper by the Dozen, and Step Up. And though some are as stomach-curdling as you’d expect from such a memoir—child abuse, fatphobia, and general trauma are a few content warnings listed at the beginning of the book—Stoner didn’t share them to tick the boxes of the tell-all genre. Instead, they’re out to expose systems and practices that are still harming young artists today.
“Typically, I would reserve all of these topics for the couch in my therapist’s office,” they say. “I decided to keep it all in [the book] knowing that this information can be leveraged to shift industry norms and how society views children in media.” The book itself, they explain, is an exploration of what it even means to be “well-adjusted” in a dysfunctional society today, whether you’re a 10-year-old triple threat or, really, any old person with a smartphone and wifi connection. As they put it, “It’s a lot to be human in 2025.”
If you’re surprised a former child star is therapized enough to know these tools, let alone cares to use them, I wouldn’t blame you. Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan, Aaron Carter, Justin Bieber…. Over the years, you’ve probably watched an icon from your youth get chewed up by the industry and spat out in the tabloids. Given the odds, how does someone emerge from the Disney machine sounding like your most introspective friend?
Semi-Well-Adjusted is, in part, an answer to that question: In their writing, Stoner doesn’t shy away from naming what they’ve been through or what it took to overcome it. Throughout their young career, they struggled with disordered eating, perfectionism, workaholism, and other impacts of a dysfunctional family life. Not wanting those issues to impact their work, Stoner explored a range of “fixes,” including therapists, dieticians, workbooks, and self-guided attempts at meal-planning—options that could fit into their regimented schedule as an actor, dancer, and singer. “I was only trying to heal so that I could get back on the hamster wheel,” they say.
