The actress who played Emily Osment in the series “Young Sheldon” has passed away suddenly hue01

Young Sheldon isn’t so young anymore.

This week, Young Sheldon star Iain Armitage turns 18, and fans of the popular sitcom might be getting misty-eyed at seeing the child actor all grown up.

Armitage got his start like many budding Gen Z creatives: on YouTube, where his theater reviews caught the attention of talent agents. That led to him serving as a correspondent for Perez Hilton at the 2015 Tony Awards when he was just 7 years old.

He would go on to appear in several TV shows and films, including Law & Order: SVU, Big Little Lies, and The Glass Castle (2017), before landing his star-making turn as the titular boy genius in The Big Bang Theory spinoff. Since the series concluded in 2024, he’s taken a step back from the spotlight, instead pursuing his passion for aviation.

But Armitage hasn’t quit acting — he’s simply a man of many hats.

Below, we’re taking a look at where Iain Armitage is now on his 18th birthday.

His career began with a YouTube series

Armitage first turned heads with his YouTube series, Iain Loves Theatre, in which the precocious child reviewed Broadway and other musical productions. He inherited his love of the stage from his family: His mother, Lee Armitage, is a theater producer, and his father, Euan Morton, is a stage actor.

Around age 6, Iain’s reviews caught the attention of talent agents. “Some agents had seen [the reviews], and they saw a boy with a personality who liked talking,” Armitage explained to the New York Post. “Two agents asked [me and my mother], ‘Would you like us to represent you?’ We said no, because it just didn’t seem right for me to do that [a TV show], I might change my mind. After a week of doing a show, I might be like, ‘OK, I don’t want to do it anymore.’”

However, after a face-to-face meeting, the agents ultimately convinced Iain and his mother, and Iain was signed. From there, he was hired by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton to cover the 2015 Tonys. Two years later, he landed the role of Ziggy Chapman, son of Shailene Woodley’s character Jane Chapman, on HBO’s Big Little Lies.

He starred on Young Sheldon for 7 seasons

Armitage ultimately became a household name thanks to his portrayal of adolescent Sheldon Cooper on Young Sheldon, a prequel to The Big Bang Theory. The series follows Sheldon as a child prodigy growing up with his family in the fictional town of Medford, Texas. It opens with Sheldon beginning his freshman year of high school at just 9 years old and chronicles his struggles to fit in as an intellectually gifted but socially awkward kid.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly in 2017, original Sheldon Cooper actor Jim Parsons admitted he was blown away by Armitage’s portrayal of the character.

“Watching Iain bring this young version of this character to life that I’ve been working on for a decade of my own life, it was really moving,” he said. “I felt such a sympathy for this little guy. It was kind of mind-blowing to see him brought to life through Iain.”

At home, Sheldon butts heads with his devoutly religious mother, Mary (Zoe Perry), and his veteran father, George Sr. (Lance Barber). As the show progresses, it explores the increasingly complex dynamics within the Cooper family, which also includes older brother Georgie (Montana Jordan), twin sister Missy (Raegan Revord), and grandmother Constance “Meemaw” Tucker (Annie Potts). By the end of the series, the family is reeling from a devastating loss, while Sheldon makes the difficult decision to leave Texas behind to pursue his academic goals in California.

In 2024, Armitage spoke with the Los Angeles Times about how emotional the end of the series was for him. “We went around the table and wrapped everybody one by one. They wrapped me last,” he explained. “That was the first time I cried about the ending. And I sort of just sat there. There were a lot of people in this little dining room. I just looked around and was like, ‘Wow, I’ve known these people for seven years.’ Some of them are newer additions to our “Young Sheldon” crew family, but it was pretty wonderful to get to look around and see everyone and that was the kind of first time I really felt emotional about the ending. I was a bit late to the party. But I was like, ‘OK, I’m at peace with this.’”

He’s a budding pilot

Off-screen, Armitage has been pursuing an ambitious pastime: Becoming a bonafide pilot. (Somebody please introduce him to Nathan Fielder.)

In an October 2024 interview with PEOPLE, Armitage revealed that he had obtained his student pilot’s license. In fact, he had already taken his grandmother up for a flight, explaining that he “actually turned 16 with my grandmother in the plane on my 16th birthday.”

He added, “She was surprisingly completely calm and collected. I was very, very impressed.

He loves to travel

Considering Armitage went so far as to earn a pilot’s license, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that he’s a bit of a travel junkie.

His Instagram page is packed with stunning photos from the actor’s sojourns, including Stonehenge, Gettysburg, South Africa, Egypt, and Poland.

For his 18th birthday, Armitage posted a carousel of selfies from a recent commercial flight. He and his mom are wearing party hats, and a “Happy Birthday” decoration can be seen partially obscured beside them.

In the caption, he notes a major travel milestone: “I’m on a flight that’s gonna cross the Prime Meridian, so I’m not actually gonna get to experience July 15th lol,” he wrote. “But still celebrating- also apparently I just reached 1,000,000 miles?!”

He recently returned to TV

Armitage may have taken a step back from acting, but he hasn’t left the business. Earlier this year, he appeared as himself on the CBS sitcom Ghosts.

Additionally, Big Little Lies season 3 is in its early stages, according to Reese Witherspoon, meaning Armitage could reprise his role as Ziggy. The new season will adapt Liane Moriarty’s forthcoming sequel novel, Big Little Truths.

He reunited with Jim Parsons earlier this year

In March, fans of Young Sheldon and The Big Bang Theory got a treat when Armitage and Parsons posed for a heartwarming reunion photo.

Armitage was attending a preview performance of Broadway’s Titanique at the St. James Theatre in New York City. The campy musical parody of James Cameron’s Titanic features the music of Céline Dion, with Parsons playing Ruth DeWitt Bukater, Rose’s mother, a role originally played by Frances Fisher.

On returning to a female role onstage for the first time since the ‘90s, Parsons told PEOPLE, “I do admit, I’m in heaven. A lot of things feel familiar and a lot of things feel new. Because I’m very different now. But there is a part of me that I accessed back then that I feel like is here, too. And I’m having an absolute blast.”