Tragic Details About Young Sheldon Star Emily Osment

The Osment family has been in Hollywood for decades. A young Haley Joel Osment gave us a bone-chilling performance — whispering "I see dead people" to Bruce Willis — in the 1999 classic "The Sixth Sense." The actor's sister, Emily Osment, has carved an equally long path to fame. You may know her from starring alongside Miley Cyrus in the Disney Channel phenomenon "Hannah Montana," playing Hannah/Miley's best friend, Lilly. However, she was in front of the camera long before her Disney days.

The year 1999 marked Emily's debut in film, starring in "The Secret Life of Girls" with Eugene Levy and Linda Hamilton. She made a few appearances on hit television shows, like her brief stint in a Season 8 Halloween episode of "Friends." In 2000, Emily was even nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a TV Movie or Pilot for her role in "Sarah, Plain & Tall: Winter's End." Her work on "Hannah Montana" cemented her as an industry veteran and a master of comedy; the actor went on to star in beloved sitcoms, including "Young & Hungry," "Young Sheldon," and "Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage."

Emily has accrued a laundry list of career achievements, but it was no easy feat. From growing up in Hollywood to devastating personal setbacks, here's a comprehensive look into some of the most tragic moments in Emily Osment's life.

In the early '00s, Hollywood had a new market: tweens. Some of the most nostalgic childhood TV — whether you were a kid or a parent watching — came from this era of entertainment, thanks to big networks like Nickelodeon and Disney Channel. Emily Osment found herself at the center of that demand when she was cast as Lilly Truscott in the sensational Disney Channel series "Hannah Montana." As a teenager herself, celebrating all the milestones — including the transition to high school, Emily's life was certainly not typical.

"The publicity is huge and so much more work comes along with it, like photo shoots," Emily told The New York Times in 2007. "It's hard to manage." Even her older brother, Haley Joel Osment, admitted that her level of fame was at a much higher pressure than his own. "That show was squarely aimed towards creating a mania in that age group," he told The Guardian in 2020. "She had to deal with a lot more strange invasions of privacy, not being able to have a normal school life." Both brother and sister agreed that social media exacerbated her issue of privacy. Public scrutiny started coming in bulk; anyone could say anything. That's a topic Emily tackled in her years after "Hannah Montana," when she starred in the Freeform (then ABC Family) original movie "Cyberbully."

In addition to wading through the trials and tribulations that come with being in the public eye, child stars also have to continue their education when they aren't working. By all accounts, striking that balance seems to be easier said than done. "I used to go to a regular, private high school but I was only there a week out of the month," she explained in a 2009 interview with Tribute. "I was out of school three weeks out of the month and so I would have everything faxed to me and e-mailed and it made it really difficult." Eventually, Osment transitioned to an online program at Laurel Springs School to help with her busy schedule. As she told VC Star in 2009, "[The private school] was a fantastic school, but it was hard when I would have to leave for long periods of time. ... It became difficult to fax all of my work over ... and I wasn't there to participate in class."

At home, meanwhile, her family did everything they could to give her a regular upbringing — from involving her in odd jobs around the house, to ensuring that she was not growing up quicker than necessary. As her father stated to The New York Times, "We do our best to try to be an average American family." 

As Lily Truscott and Miley Stewart, Emily Osment and Miley Cyrus defined a new era of sisterhood for Disney-watching young adults everywhere. But once the cameras stopped rolling, their relationship wasn't as smooth-sailing for the "Hannah Montana" stars. Osment and Cyrus didn't always get along, despite their friendship kicking off on a high note on the popular show. "There was competition between us — girls struggle with that, and we were no exception," Cyrus wrote in her 2009 autobiography "Miles To Go," revealing that any efforts to make their dynamic work "always ended in a fight" (via Business Insider). Somewhere along the way, things settled and the pair grew into a friendship that fans cherish to this day.

Maintaining amicable equations with her co-stars on set wasn't the only hill Osment was climbing at the time. The demands of her profession as a television actor filming in front of a live audience were more often than not challenging, and kept the young star on her toes. As she told Tribute, the makers of "Hannah Montana" routinely pitched curveballs her way that required her to adapt to her character's changing situations. "That's what it really comes down to, just being really brave, because there's a lot of different things that are thrown at you ... you never know what's going to happen so you have to be ready for anything," she said. 

If you haven't seen the gutwrenching 2011 film "Cyberbully," starring Emily Osment as the lead, then we highly recommend grabbing a box of tissues before renting it. As the title suggests, "Cyberbully" addresses the very new, but now very familiar, online phenomenon of cyberbullying. Osment's character Taylor Hillridge is the victim of online harassment that leads her to attempt suicide. Still a teenager while filming — and likely knowing how it feels to be harassed online — Osment understood the severity of the film's theme, leaving lasting emotional trauma.

While shooting for six weeks in Montreal, Osment said she was overcome with sadness most of the time. "It's very easy for me to get depressed," Osment told We Love Soaps TV in 2011. "We did a lot of rehearsal before, but I was shocked as to how much this impacted me, the role, and the attitude of the whole thing. I would just come home and I would cry." The actor explained how she would get into heavily dejected states that made her unable to chat with friends. "They'd call and I'd be like, 'I just can't talk to you right now. I'm so sad.' And, they're like, 'Are you okay? This is not what you said you were going to be doing to this movie.'"

In 2017, Osment posted to X about how watching the hard-to-swallow Netflix series "13 Reasons Why" reminded her of filming "Cyberbully." "It was a grueling and emotional six weeks that will never leave me as long as I live," she wrote. "I went to work every day and sunk myself into a sorrow hole because I felt like it was the only way to truthfully depict depression. I had to live it, and pulling myself out at the end was incredibly challenging, but ultimately a surprisingly rewarding experience."

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The entertainment industry — notorious for its persistent chasm in wages, treatment, and general safety between genders — has long forced female stars to navigate an uneven playing field. After spending the majority of her life in the public eye, Emily Osment has seen the thornier aspects of being a woman in showbiz up close. As she said in a 2025 interview with the Los Angeles Times, "I mean, just being a woman in this industry is so unpredictable and at times very difficult." Finding a supportive space like the one she did was "hard to come by" for women, she noted.

Even so, Osment was adequately clued into the challenges working women face. A lifetime of acting, naturally, would have come punctuated with difficult moments for her — a complete understanding of which she only got in hindsight. "There's this safe space feeling that I have been denied so many times in my career that I didn't even realize I could ask for that," she said in a conversation with Decider about working with intimacy coordinators on her show "Pretty Smart." She added, "Unfortunately, I can't think of a single woman that hasn't said 'Yeah, I've felt uncomfortable in my place of work before.'"

"Young & Hungry" marked a major milestone in Emily Osment's television career. She not only officially made the leap from child stardom to adulthood, but proved that she has the chops to be the lead on a sitcom. Besides her obvious on-screen talent, her success was all too evident in the many awards she received for playing Gabi Diamond and signaled that critics and fans alike were rooting for her. Osment was no less hyped, gushing to Backstage magazine, "This has been a really great experience for me." As empowering as this turn in her professional journey was, it came with some eye-opening realizations for Osment — one being that for the first time in her career, her reel and real lives were aligning. 

"For so many years I've been playing younger characters, so it opens up a completely different acting bracket for me — that I can actually play someone who's had these experiences in real life," she said about doing the show at 23, the same age as her character was in the show. It also gave her perspective on things she had been hard on herself and her mental health about. Talking candidly about it in a 2018 X post, she wrote, "Your own sanity is so much more important than anything else. Weird seeing this season's young and hungry from over a year ago when I was 20lbs heavier and deeply sad." 

While Emily Osment has undeniably managed a good run so far in showbiz — taking on different genres and formats with equal flourish — the success she's achieved has hardly been linear. After "Hannah Montana," she moved around on television, making episodic appearances across popular shows like "Family Guy" and "Two and a Half Men," until finding her break as a front-and-center main cast member on "Young & Hungry." The feel-good sitcom enjoyed a five-season arc but did not end on the best note, with plans for a finale film being scrapped by Freeform channel and leaving Osment heartbroken. 

Her shows "Almost Family" and "Pretty Smart" also met similar ends, being cancelled by their respective platforms after a few episodes. Parallel to her acting career, Osment has also pursued music for years and while some of her early work did earn her commercial acclaim, this passion has largely remained eclipsed by her other entertainment pursuits. But Osment seems to have taken the highs and lows of her career in her stride and despite the setbacks, has kept moving forward with grace and grit. "It's just funny the way life happens," she told the Los Angeles Times in 2025. "And I think with any big decision in your life, whether it's relationships or work or whatever it may be, you have to firmly plant both feet in that decision to understand the full scope of that choice you've made." 

It's hard to forget the days spent locked away as the world anticipated an answer to the COVID-19 pandemic issues; Emily Osment was no exception. At the beginning of the lockdown in the spring of 2020, the actor kept her Instagram updated with the latest happenings and uneasy feelings. "Contrary to the illusion I am 100% wearing a bathing suit, six layers of anxiety, and one thin layer of relaxation," she joked in the caption of a photo posted on Instagram of her in a pool float. Her little quip, of course, had a deeper meaning — alluding to the pandemic panic, which ensued for many months after.

Specifically for Emily, working through the pandemic was incredibly nerve-racking. "I worked all through COVID, which was terrifying," she told Us Weekly in 2024. "It was scary to be in a position where you don't really know if you're safe or not. And you have no choice but to pick up your mask and work." During that time, Emily was working on the Netflix sitcom "The Kominsky Method," which also starred Haley Joel Osment. Having a close confidant on set gave her a bit of ease. "Knowing where [Haley Joel had] been — you know, he's my brother — it was comforting to have him there," said Emily.

In January 2025, devastation hit Los Angeles, California. Flames engulfed the city and the surrounding neighborhoods that housed celebrities and Angelenos alike. Many stars tragically lost their homes in the wildfires that hit the area, including much of Emily Osment's family. While the fires raged through her Altadena neighborhood, the "Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage" star took to Instagram to share the enormous loss of her parents' and brother's homes.

"It's been an extremely difficult month," she began the lengthy caption, before explaining her family's devastation. "Community is everything and I know I'm heavily leaning on mine right now — and that's okay! So much love for my beautiful, aching city." Osment asked her followers to donate to the organizations helping to combat the disaster. "Show up and be there for those who are struggling right now," she wrote. The Los Angeles native had an insightful message for those who were impacted, however, telling her followers, "We will rebuild. We are so strong, even stronger than we could ever imagine."

While supporting her family through their devastation, Emily Osment is getting support right back. In March 2025, it was reported that Osment filed for divorce just five months after marrying her long-term partner Jack Anthony. Their newlywed phase came to an abrupt end, as the actor listed their separation date as December 7, 2024 — less than two months after their wedding — in the court filings, per TMZ. She cited irreconcilable differences as their reason for the abrupt split.

Osment and Anthony — whose real surname is Farina — went public with their relationship in 2021. In the summer of 2023, the former child star shared in a now-deleted Instagram post that she was engaged. Osment's ring was stunning, with a royal touch. "This magical, beautiful, kaleidoscope of a person asked me to marry him this weekend," Emily wrote in the caption of the post, per E! News. "I did not know life could be this sweet or I could ever be this deliriously happy."

In a statement to TMZ after the news broke, Osment said, "I think with any big decision in your life, whether it's relationships or work or whatever it may be, you have to firmly plant both feet in that decision. Ultimately, it didn't work out."

Emily Osment's short-lived marriage to Jack Anthony hasn't been the only romantic chapter in her life that came to an end. Over the years, the "Young Sheldon" star has been linked to multiple celebrities and, while she's not excessively forthcoming about her private affairs, she has had to live through the ups and downs in her relationships in the public eye, courtesy her celebrity status. From co-stars Mitchell Musso and Tony Oller, to showbiz peers like Nathan Keyes — Osment has been linked to her fair share of male celebrities. One of her most memorable relationships was with "American Vandal" actor Jimmy Tatro, with whom she walked hand-in-hand with at high-profile events and many red carpets between 2013 and 2015. 

In the years before her marriage, Osment's personal life notably made headlines when she appeared to be dating someone outside the industry. Her then-sweetheart in question was speculated to be one Jim Gilbert, about whom Osment often dropped hints on social media, according to J-14. It didn't last long with Gilbert, and Anthony came into the picture soon after. Unsteady as her love life may seem, Osment is presumably sailing through it all with positive mantras keeping her afloat. As she said in the Los Angeles Times, "I think sometimes even making a Plan B, the universe kind of laughs at you. It's got its fingers holding the strings, and it's just going to turn out the way it's going to turn out."