Hayden Panettiere was on Jay Shetty’s podcast promoting her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, which is out next week. I am so happy to see that Hayden is sober, that she left a very abusive relationship, and that she has a good relationship with her daughter Kaya, 11, with Ukranian boxing great Wladimir Klitschko. Hayden gave up custody of Kaya in 2018 to Wladimir and his family in Ukraine. Hayden was open with the press that she did it for her daughter’s well being and that she was suffering from postpartum depression. As I wrote at the time “We just don’t know what’s going with [Hayden] and it’s possible this is a choice she made so that Kaya could be in a better situation. It sounds like a selfless and difficult decision.” I was floored by how many people criticized Hayden for this.
Hayden spoke with Jay for two hours and they covered so many topics it’s hard to know what to recap. She started by talking about how she was her family’s primary breadwinner and has been acting since she was a child. Her mother was her manager. When Hayden was on Heroes she told her mom that she wanted to strike out on her own. Her mother responded “you owe me” and has never tried to have a personal relationship with Hayden. Hayden’s dad has been supportive though.
The two moments from this interview that are getting the most press are when Hayden explained her decision to surrender custody of her daughter and when she talked about the time that an older female “friend” left her as an offering to a Weinstein-type predator on a yacht. (It may very well have been Weinstein.) Hayden realized what was happening and hid until she could get to safety. Trigger warning for that excerpt below.
Jay Shetty: You write about a moment in your career where a friend of yours takes you onto a boat. You’re led to a room which has an older man in it and then basically told to perform sexual acts…
Hayden Panettiere: I thought I was oh so mature at 18. Scientifically you know your frontal lobes don’t develop until we’re what 25, 26. So even though I felt like I could make healthy decisions safe decisions I wasn’t capable of being fully aware of what was going on around me. And it wasn’t until I found myself in predicaments that.. I realized that I was in danger. But by the time I’d realized I was in danger, I was quite literally out to sea. It was somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector…
To be walked down the stairs, like a surprise [in] this very small room. She physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous. This was just an average day for him. This is something that happens every time. I waited for her to leave. And I mean that that lion in me, that fire in me, my hair stood on on end and I became ferocious. I was like, “This is not happening.” But I had nowhere to hide. And I bolted and hid wherever I could think of to hide on on a boat. There was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation. This was nothing new to them.
I’d been let down so much before and that when you really find somebody that you trust, like you hold on to them for dear life and you feel so lucky. So to be betrayed like that is just an awful feeling.
[Transcript from The Jay Shetty Show]
I’m so glad that Hayden got out of that ok, but she said it wasn’t the last time it happened to her. Later in the interview she described what it was like to play a character on the show Nashville with postpartum depression and anxiety when she was going through that too. Sources insisted at the time that the parallels to Hayden’s life were just a coincidence. Hayden told Jay the role was affecting her and that she filmed 12 to 20 hour days and couldn’t get a break from the character. She also talked about her decision to get substance abuse treatment and to give up custody of her daughter. I’m going to quote Page Six here because they did a good job summarizing everything.
“The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be OK with it is heartbreaking…
“It couldn’t be further from the truth,” she added. “It became this horrible cycle for years of battling depression and anxiety and alcoholism and substance abuse and just me trying to find my way back.”
Panettiere, now 36, explained she “completely lost” herself, sharing that her ex-fiancé, Wladimir Klitschko, asked for Kaya to live with him full-time in Ukraine at the age of 2.
“I did not have a good reaction to it,” she admitted. “I went like mother lion. I would’ve burnt the world down for my child. So that was incredibly difficult.”
“So by the time I finally got healthy, I felt like it would have been unfair of me to and selfish of me to try and pull her out and away from this life that she had created,” Panettiere added, explaining her daughter has learned five languages and enjoys horseback riding.
“I know in my heart that she feels supported,” the “Nashville” alum said. “I have an incredible relationship with her. I go to travel as much as I can to see her. I do spend a lot of time on FaceTime with her.”
Hayden’s growth and insight is impressive and I’m so relieved that she’s doing well. It truly seems like she made the best decision by letting Kaya stay with Wladimir. I can only imagine how difficult that was. I’m also happy to see her acting again in movies like Scream IV and Amber Alert. She’s getting her career and life back on track. She’s definitely a scream queen and I’d love to see her in more horror movies. I also hope that her book is a bestseller.
The internet is a cesspool ,the comments i read on insta on various accounts where brutal. Basicly she abandoned her daughter for her abusive and drug addicted boyfriend ,honestly i feel like if even if that was the case, what state of mind was she in? So in the end the best decison was made for her child however you look at it.
this strikes me as such a selfless decision – especially now, as Hayden has her life back and would be a competent parent. To choose to keep your child where they’re happy and comfortable, instead of being with you now that you’re healthy, must be brutal. Good parents put their children’s wellbeing above all.
There are a lot of parallels to the selflessness of adoption. She couldn’t be the parent her daughter deserved, so she spared her a lifetime of back and forth drama and heartbreak and let her live a loving and stable life until she could be a part of it in a healthy way. Good for her for putting her daughter first.
She’s gone through a lot. What are her parents like? It seems no one was ever looking out for her. She’s really talented.
I mean, Amanda Bynes is just a few years older than her. These women were exposed to the worst of the industry pre-#MeToo and then we wonder why they turned to drugs, alcohol or experience crippling depression and anxiety. And that’s not to suggest that #MeToo marked the end of abuse in the entertainment industry–far from it–but it really was a revelation; a kind of public reckoning that made men feel fearful and reflect on how they treat women.
Prior to that Hayden, Bynes, Spears and many other young women were encouraged to enter into a brutal industry without the necessary protections to shield them from abuse. Their parents were often a source of financial and emotional pressure while they were expected to keep the gravy train rolling, regardless of the toll it was taking on their mental health. The fact that people would pile on when she was grappling with so much honestly disgusts me. Women can never win.
I have nothing but sympathy for Hayden Panettiere and support for her recovery. She’s really come a long way on a very difficult journey.
Even though a lot of people liken Beyonces father Matthew Knowles to Joe Jackson,i like the fact that he went with them everywhere. Rehearsals, late night studio sessions, awards etc im sure people with ill intentions hated to see him coming.
It sounds like both of Kaya’s parents had her best interests at heart at the time. I’m glad Hayden’s got a relationship with her now.
I had severe PPD and the best decision I could have possibly made was to go and stay in the hospital until I got better. Thankfully the hospital stay was only for a week, but it was necessary. I could barely take care of my baby and couldn’t take care of myself at all in the state I was in. Thank God for my husband and family stepping in.
The most important thing a parent can do for a child is make sure they’re safe and well-looked after, and sometimes that means taking a step back until you can provide that. Both hayden and kaya will have benefitted from this in the long term, as difficult as it must have been at the time.
I think hayden deserves a lot of respect for that, being able to accept and commit to it despite her drug use at the time, when she was hardly in a rational mindset. We tend to hold mothers to a much higher standard than fathers, and I bet if this was the other way around she’d have never been so vilified. Good on her for staying strong and prioritising her daughter over herself
I remember her from Nashville! What a powerhouse performer! I didn’t follow her personal Ife at all but it’s heartbreaking to read what she went through 😢
It’s fantastic that she’s in a better place now and has a good relationship with her daughter.
Watching her on Nashville broke my heart for her. It felt so real, and following her story on here confirmed that it was. I cannot fathom the strength it took her to choose stability and safety for her daughter over the pain of not being with her. I’m ready and waiting for Hayden’s career resurgence (if she wants it).
Ive followed Hayden P. since Guiding Light. She has always been talented, and I was concerned when her life seemed to be spiraling. Im happy to read she has gotten help and has clearly grown in all the best ways. Best wishes to her!
One could make a two-volume coffee table book about the 90s-10s actresses who suddenly dropped off the radar–or who were labeled “troubled.” 🤬🤬 I figured Panitierre was undergoing some serious industry mess just from the number of male Heroes fans who called her “Hayden Pantyterre.”
What a heartbreaking story. Nice to read Hayden’s getting her life and hopefully her career back as well. She’s so talented.