Hayden Panettiere is pulling the curtain back on her past.
While promoting her new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, she reflected on a deeply unsettling time in her life when she says she was “told to perform” sexual acts with an older man she met via a trusted friend.
“The fact that I was 18, even though I’d lived such a huge life and I thought I was oh so mature at 18 … scientifically, your frontal lobes don’t develop until we’re what, 25, 26?” Panettiere, 36, said during the Monday, May 11, episode of the “On Purpose with Jay Shetty” podcast after writing about the experience in her book. “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.”
Panettiere spoke about the “shocking” incident that took place in a “very small room” on a boat with author and life coach Jay Shetty, noting it was even more troubling due to being quite “literally out to sea.” The actress was 18 at the time and starred on the hit show Heroes as Claire Bennet, an indestructible cheerleader with super healing powers.
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The former child star — who now shares a daughter Kaya, 11, with ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko — said she never anticipated being shoved into the room by a person she deemed “as a protector and somebody who had my back.”
“She physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous,” Panettiere said, revealing he acted “like this was just an average day for him.” Panettiere said she was instantly on alert and hyperaware of her surroundings, adding, “That lion in me, that fire in me … my hair stood on end and I became ferocious. I was like, ‘This is not happening.’”
She had nowhere to hide at the time, but “bolted” to another room.
“There was no jumping off and swimming away,” Panettiere added. “And there was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation. I realized that this was nothing new to them.”
Panettiere said it was a “disappointing” memory to look back on, “when somebody lets you down like that.” She pointed out that she had been disappointed by others before.
In hindsight, Panettiere said it made her appreciate those in her life who she can always count on in hard times — including her father, Skip Panettiere, who was consistently her “safe space” and who kept her “grounded.”
“When you really find somebody that you trust, you hold on to them for dear life and you feel so lucky,” the Nashville star shared. “So to be betrayed like that is just an awful feeling.”
Panettiere recently spoke about her childhood fame, surviving addiction, abuse and more in Us Weekly’s cover story, telling Us there is so much more to the actress than meets the eye.
“I think people will be surprised by what they learn,” she said.
After overcoming some of her life’s greatest challenges, Panettiere admitted to Shetty, 38, that she is taking a closer look at how she vets the individuals who enter her orbit. “I’ve not seen clearly immediately … They really were able to pull the wool over my eyes,” she said.
“I have, throughout the years, been fortunate enough to meet incredible people,” she also highlighted. “Incredibly loyal, and genuinely genuinely good.”