The first time Hayden Panettiere realized she was a tabloid journalist, she was 16 years old. A photographer captured her wearing shorts, bending over, and the photo was published with a caption about her supposed cellulite. After that moment — and a brief experiment with the photo’s comments section — she decided to start filtering the press for herself. “But sometimes, things get through,” she says. “My publicist would get a phone call asking me to comment on something about my life, and I had to decide, do I stop commenting and let them put out whatever version they want? Or do I comment to get on with it, but I’m forced to talk about things I don’t really want to?”
The actress, now 36, says that in the decades since, there have been countless moments of misinformation — and that’s what led to her finally sitting down and writing her memoir and giving her courage. in This is me: an account (out May 19), Panettiere delves into her experience as a child actress on the whim of a doting stage mother, navigating her time on hit TV shows (Heroes and nashville) while her personal life and the drug abuse issues that resulted from it all fell apart. “One of the things I was very afraid about, when I was deciding whether or not to write this book, was that I knew what was coming with it,” she says of the ways in which she was reframing her traumas during the press tour for the book, which is still emerging. “I had to sit down with myself and make a decision, and I realized that it was more important for me to share my stories and erase everything I had.”
Below, she talks to Hollywood Reporter About the biggest revelations from its pages: the powerful people who hurt her, the way her personal tragedies impacted her career’s biggest milestones and the way she thinks about the business of acting as a whole.
People have been really supportive of you coming out as bisexual in the book. Were you reacting to the headlines this time?
I’ve gotten a lot of positivity and it’s heartwarming. Reading those comments from people inside and outside the industry makes me feel like I made the right decision to write the book.
A lot of the things you’re discussing for the first time, like being bisexual, are things you’ve known for a long time or experienced a long time ago. Is there anything in the book you’re still trying to process?
Having to bring up everything about my relationship with my mother was one of the hardest things to talk about. As I write it, I realize even more how much of a burden it has been on me. And then of course, anytime [the death of] My little brother is coming. This is still a topic that I have moments of bursting into tears anytime I try to talk about it. Time can be a great healer, but in this case, my grief seems to be evolving. It’s something I will never get over.
You write a lot about your family, whether it’s about the complicated feelings you have about the way your mother pushed you through your career as a very young actress, or the dissolution of your parents’ marriage. Did you tell people you were going to write about these things?
I was very protective of people in my writing. I felt strongly that I could tell my stories and make them entertaining enough to put in a book, without having to drag people through the mud. I had members on my team that I would exchange ideas with, or ask for their opinions on things like I was writing. I mean, my publicist is also my best friend and I trust her, so I relied on her to know. And then I was sure that Vlad [Klitschko, Panettiere’s ex-fiancé and father of her daughter] He won’t be upset with me. But other than that, I just had to speak my truth, and it was my truth alone.
There are some celebrities whose names she mentions, like when she discusses setting up with Stephen Colletti, or dating and then breaking up with Milo Ventimiglia. Others are not named, such as the yachting incident with the older man. Was there a strategy for who was or was not named?
Yes, because it was a bad look for them [the people I didn’t name] They were generally people in my field. They are people I could meet again. I didn’t want to put myself in that position. Things happened a long time ago, but it was to protect me and my company from getting sued by some very angry celebrity.
Can you talk about the ethics clause that you had with Neutrogena, because I think a lot of readers may not realize how standard that is.
Any contract you have, when you are a representative of a company, always contains an ethics clause. You are the face of the company, and the company wants to look good in the eyes of the public.
Do you have the ability to negotiate back and forth on what each party considers “ethical” behavior?
This was always an interesting question, and what interested me most about postpartum depression was the thing that ultimately ended my time with them. Like, actually, of all the things that people who represent your company have done, the thing that you would say is not allowed and that violates the ethical requirement is to talk about postpartum depression? This is not a moral thing, this is just a scientific thing. This isn’t even legal. You cannot legally fire someone because they have postpartum depression. It’s not a choice I made. It wasn’t my fault. So this blew my mind.
Do you think the same thing will happen today?
Having spoken publicly about this and talked about the Neutrogena side of it, I don’t think anyone in this industry would do that to anyone else.
Another contract you discuss in the book is your no-kill clause Screaming. I didn’t realize you could ask that.
You can ask. This doesn’t mean you will get it. There are loopholes. It took a few movies to bring me back into the world Screaming privilege. Obviously I wasn’t in the last part, but I’m still alive and living in this universe, so I’d be happy to come back anytime.
Your younger brother, Janssen, died shortly before Screaming 6 The press tour has begun and you are writing about trying to fulfill your journalistic obligations. Did you feel pressured to do this?
I didn’t know if that would be a welcome distraction or if I was pushing myself too soon. It wasn’t until I was physically doing it that I realized I was about to collapse and had to cancel a group of people. It takes a team that tells you it’s okay to cancel, that you’re allowed to, and that was my publicist. I’m not sure I should have put myself in that position.
When you feel pressure, does it come from a studio or network willing to honor your commitments? Or is it a bigger fear that you need to seize all the moments you can for journalism or work?
I think that’s the way I was raised. I was set up. I was like a little soldier, always had been. No it was never an option. It was just, these are your scenes, this is your dialogue, memorize it, hit the marks, do what your director tells you to do. You took my marching orders.
At what point did you realize that grooming this way was unnatural?
When I started hurting myself by using drugs. My people’s satisfaction piled up and grew, and so did my anger, anxiety, and frustration. My life revolved around others, I lived to make others happy and I was last on the list. The pressure that built and built and just exploded. I started to figure out any way I could get past this. Sometimes in therapy they’ll say, believe it or not, our addiction probably saved us at some point.
Once you realized that was happening, did you find it easier to make business decisions yourself?
No, so I was dealing with all those years of being the guy and not sticking up for myself. I never say no, I don’t feel comfortable doing that or telling people I’m overworked. I was pushing myself to do what they wanted on set, but it was too much for anyone.
Can you pinpoint a role or business decision that stood out when your career was entirely your own?
I don’t think anyone has seen it in full yet. It’s coming. This is still something I’m working on.
You write about your struggles with the stories of your two biggest shows – the way the quality declined in later seasons HeroesAnd the way Juliet walks nashville It’s starting to resemble your own personal struggles. Was there a moment when the opportunity presented itself? For the actors in those shows to talk about it?
The scripts came so quickly, and we had so little time, that we would have put a spoke in the wheel. At this point in my career, I might try saying something like: “Let’s just have a conversation before this starts. Please don’t drag me through the mud constantly.” I’m happy to do it from time to time, but it takes a toll on me.
Did you have any mentors in those groups who could try to protect or advocate for you?
I did, but not really nashville. I felt like I was alone a lot nashville. Jonathan Jackson was a great support to me when we played husband and wife. He’s a great scene partner and if I needed anything, he was there in a second.
Knowing what you do about work, do you want your younger self to start acting like a kid? Would you feel comfortable if your daughter did this?
This is something that always makes me wonder if I would have naturally gravitated towards acting, if I hadn’t been pushed into it. But I can see my daughter, who is 11, is interested. I will say, please go to college, please try things. If you really like it, I will support you wholeheartedly. If she doesn’t like it, she can leave. Her world doesn’t have to revolve around that. I didn’t have anything to fall back on. I never went to college. There is no going back. But I’m grateful for the position I’m in, and the things I want to achieve. I want to do action, I love producing, I want to direct. I like to do comedy. People would be shocked to know that I can be a bit funny (He laughs).
