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, Osment 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."

Osment 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, Osment's life was certainly not typical.

"The publicity is huge and so much more work comes along with it, like photo shoots," Osment 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 Osment tackled in her years after "Hannah Montana," when she starred in the Freeform (then ABC Family) original movie "Cyberbully."

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 (formerly Twitter) 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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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 Osment, 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, Osment 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 Osment.

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, Osment shared in a now-deleted Instagram post that she was engaged — and the 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."