Like Daniel Radcliffe with “Harry Potter” or Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone,” Iain Armitage will always be known for “Young Sheldon.”
Armitage has acted in “Big Little Lies” and voiced Chase in “Paw Patrol: The Movie,” but you can’t scroll through his Instagram comments without a deluge of “Young Sheldon” references. And now, more than two years after the hit CBS show wrapped its seven-season run, Armitage, 18, is opening up about what it was really like to grow up onscreen with America watching.
In a new book, “Young Sheldon: The (Juicier-Than-Meemaw's-Brisket) Inside Story of the Hit Comedy," bestselling author Jessica Radloff, who also hosts “The Official Big Bang Theory Podcast,” uncovers behind-the-scenes stories from the cast and crew of “Young Sheldon.”
The book is out Oct. 20 from Grand Central Publishing.
In this exclusive USA TODAY excerpt, Armitage reveals how he wrestled with his voice changing, acne and fans' invasive questions as the show surged in popularity. Radloff sat down with Armitage and McKenna Grace, who played Paige, for a conversation on growing up in the spotlight.
Iain Armitage on the joys and pressures of growing up on ‘Young Sheldon’
Jessica Radloff: Iain is often asked what it was like to grow up on Young Sheldon, having spent his formative years on the show. By all accounts, it was a wonderful childhood. But it’s not a “normal” environment. You’re doing an adult’s job, but you’re a kid, even though you’re operating on a wavelength dissimilar to most of your peers. People want to know everything, from how much you’re making to who you have a crush on. It’s a lot to comprehend as an adult; as a kid, it’s like being in a fishbowl.
Iain Armitage: Often it’s hard for me to talk to people my own age. I feel most comfortable talking with or interacting with sixty- to ninety-year-olds. I’m also lucky because I get that time here in Virginia to spend time with my friends and learn the ropes of not sounding like a complete robot when talking to someone my own age. But I’m so glad I was in an environment that was ours to mold, and Mom and [on-set teacher] Maura’s to protect me with. I always felt comfortable saying, “Can we do this differently? Or can we do more of this? Or less of this?” And we could work together to improve my education. And education for education’s sake is a great thing. And it’s interesting, because if you ask me to name the ten most important things about myself, to me, being young Sheldon would be like, tenth. I love it so much, and I feel so lucky, but I have a lot of hobbies and interests and passions. I love watches, I love traveling, I love animals, I love languages, I love food. I love being a pilot. I love martial arts. I love jumping on trampolines. And I feel in a weird way, it’s kind of a bit of social credibility, where someone will say, “Hey, are you young Sheldon?” and then we’ll get into talking about movies we like. It quickly moves away from being that guy on TV.
Radloff: But being “that guy on TV” means that fans often have something to say about Iain, without considering that “that guy” might see it.
Lee Armitage (Iain's mom): Comments were usually ninety-seven percent nice, and then you see things that he’s the worst character ever. There was one episode where his voice change was very noticeable, and it felt like everybody commented on it on his social media. And I finally posted – as Iain – something like, “I’m looking forward to the day when that’s not the main topic.” How many times does someone need to comment and say, “Oh, his voice is so deep now. It’s deeper than Jim’s.” Like, okay, we get it. Most people were pretty nice. I didn’t take a lot of the comments seriously.
Iain Armitage: But people can be mean. And I shouldn’t read the comments, and I’m not really supposed to, but I find ways of doing that. It’s so hard not to. For a long time I didn’t. But I’m curious. And the way I deal with it changes based on the mood I’m in or what’s happening. There was a while on the show, I think before puberty, when I was a little chunkier, and people would say something. You just have to grit your teeth and move past it. But it’s hard.
Lee Armitage: Sometimes Iain would feel bad about himself for whatever reason, and I used to just think, “If he’s feeling bad about himself, how does anybody else get through life?” Because he’s one of the highest-achieving people I know. And I just would try to say to him, “Everybody feels bad about themselves sometimes,” but if he’s sitting in a place where he feels bad about himself, it’s such an impossible standard, because everything he’s doing is so great. So it’s hard to hear him say it. I certainly don’t want the person I love most in the world feeling that way.
Iain Armitage: Everyone puts themselves through a harsher filter, and if I saw another person who was an exact double of me, with their hair uncombed and wearing ratty clothes, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. But because it’s me, I do. And the thing is, when people say, “Nobody’s looking at you. Nobody cares,” I can go outside and in the span of a day have fifty photos taken of me, so they are looking at me. But I would just remind people of the golden rule to work on themselves before taking down other people. I hope everybody remembers we’re all human, and approach people with love. Even if it’s a critique – do it with love and kindness. I think with anything, balance is the key. Use the right pronouns. Be nice to everybody. And hate should never be tolerated.
Lee Armitage: When Iain was little, I used to teach him that you never know what someone is sensitive about. So unless it’s so clearly a compliment, don’t say it. Even something like, “You’re so tall.” What if that person is sensitive about that?
Iain Armitage: I remember in the summer of 2024, after we wrapped "Young Sheldon," I felt so ugly. Anytime I see a photo from that summer, I get so mad. I had a lot of acne. Now I take better care of my skin, but on my birthday that year, I looked terrible. It was definitely weird, because I think my voice kind of changed over a break during the show, so I came back, and people were pretty interested in how I sounded. And my voice still fluctuates a lot. I even tried to make my voice sound higher for a bit on the show, which hurt my throat. But I feel so weird knowing that there are very ugly photos of me online. There was some joke on "Young Sheldon" that I don’t even have hair under my arms yet or something, and there’s this photo of me with my arms up, and I’m naturally blond, so my underarm hair is blond and you can’t really even see it in the photo. It’s weird to know people are commenting on my underarm hair. But it’s more the little snapshots that people take of me in public when I don’t know it. I’ve seen plenty of photos where people take a photo of me from across the road, and I’m like, “Just ask.” Let me know. So I sometimes feel a pressure to look good when I go out. Sometimes when I go get groceries, I feel like I have to dress up and look nice. But at least on the show, I was able to go through puberty pretty gracefully and they were all very nice behind the scenes.
Steve Holland (writer): I think some people online said, “Well, his voice is deeper than Jim’s,” and you’re like, what do you want us to do? But to me, at least, while we were writing, it gave us opportunities at least to tell different stories and kept the show from being frozen in time because as the kids got older and changed physically, it made sense that the types of stories we would tell would change that helped us to not repeat ourselves over and over again.
Radloff: While Missy and Georgie had crushes and love interests on the show as they got older, Sheldon never did, which was in line with his character. For Iain – who already felt like he was under a microscope as he went through puberty – it came as a relief.
Iain Armitage: Absolutely. Yes. I’m so glad they didn’t do anything with Sheldon and Paige. Anytime they hinted at weird love stuff, especially for Sheldon, I would always be like, “Uh . . .” I remember the episode where Paige was drunk, and reading it like, “Uh, where is this going?” I’m so glad it wasn’t weird. But it was great to play a character who is love-challenged. Montana and Rae handled it like champs, but I’m very glad to have not had to do that. It must have been very hard.
McKenna Grace (“Paige Swanson”): I get that in my comment sections all the time, like, “Where’s young Sheldon? Isn’t this, like, Sheldon’s ex-girlfriend?” So I was honestly very glad they never gave us that plotline because we had that one bit where it was [hinted at]. But I can’t imagine at that stage in their lives that she would have wanted to date Sheldon. I think she would have killed him. [Laughs] Though I do think there was a nice connection between the two, even though he was kind of a dingus when it came down to it. They knew what it was like to be the smart kid, but they were just on very different paths.
Iain Armitage: As it is, in real life I’ve also gotten everything from people thinking I’m dating specific people, like Mckenna, or people thinking I’m gay. Sometimes people will come up to me in public and be like, “Yo, you gay?” or “Man, you dating anyone?” I have a whole myriad of stuff to respond with. It depends on the person and what they’re saying, but if it’s a guy asking if I’m gay, I’ll say, “Not for you.” Or “I haven’t found the right guy yet.” But usually among young people, it’s easy to say a bit of verbal jujitsu and say something funny. People will say, “Yo, man, do you get a lot of girls? Do you have a girlfriend?” and I’ll say something funny to make someone laugh and divert the conversation. Or, “That’s private, dude, don’t ask that.” It’s the same when people ask how much money I’ve made, or say they’re going to look up my net worth. That’s weird. Don’t do that.
The following excerpt appears in "Young Sheldon: The (Juicier-Than-Meemaw's-Brisket) Inside Story of the Hit Comedy” by Jessica Radloff. Copyright © 2026 Jessica Radloff. Published by Grand Central Publishing, a Hachette Book Group company. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Iain Armitage opens up about invasive comments from 'Young Sheldon' fans | Exclusive
