Hayden Panettiere, now 36, recently spoke candidly about her experience as a child star in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, ahead of the release of her memoir, "This Is Me: A Reckoning" on May 19. The actress revealed that she felt like she was "groomed" from a young age to be a constant worker and honor commitments, with "no" never being an option.
Panettiere began her acting career before she was even a year old in 1990, first appearing in commercials before transitioning to TV work. By the age of 4, she had landed the role of Sarah Roberts on the soap opera One Life to Live, where she starred from 1994 to 1997. She later appeared on Guiding Light as Lizzie Spaulding and voiced Dot in Pixar's A Bug's Life before gaining wider recognition in films like Remember the Titans. Panettiere eventually became a household name through starring roles on shows like Heroes and Nashville.
Looking back, Panettiere said she did not initially realize how abnormal her upbringing in the entertainment industry had been. "When I started self-harming in the form of substance abuse," she said, "my people-pleasing had built up and up, it was anger and anxiety and frustration. My life revolved around other people, and I lived to make other people happy and I was the last one on the list."
The pressure of constantly working built and built until it "just exploded," she continued. "I started figuring out any way I could get through it. Sometimes they'll say in treatment that, believe it or not, our addictions probably saved us at a certain point."
Even after recognizing those unhealthy patterns, Panettiere admitted it remained difficult to advocate for herself professionally. "No," she said when asked whether it became easier to make business decisions for herself. "I was dealing with all those years of being the yes man and not sticking up for myself. Never saying no, I don’t feel comfortable doing that or telling people that I’m overworked."
The actress also reflected on whether she would want her younger self to follow the same path into Hollywood, especially as her daughter Kaya has started taking an interest in acting. "That’s the thing is I will always wonder if I would have gravitated naturally towards acting if I had not been pushed into it," Panettiere said. "But I see my daughter, at 11 years old, taking an interest."
Panettiere added that growing up in the business left her without a traditional backup plan outside the entertainment industry. "I never had anything to fall back on. I never went to college. There’s no going back," she told THR.
The star recently opened up about her estranged relationship with her mother, Lesley Vogel, who managed her career from childhood, while appearing on Jay Shetty's podcast, On Purpose with Jay Shetty. "Everything was business," she recalled. "I became the confidant and the assistant and the therapist and the shoulder to cry on and everything but her child."
Panettiere said she eventually worked up the courage to sever their professional relationship when she was 19 while filming the hit NBC show. "I said to her, ‘I don’t want us to work together anymore. I just want you to be my mom,’" Panettiere recalled. But the response she says she received left a lasting impact. "I remember being hopeful," Panettiere said. "But I also wasn’t expecting the reaction that I got, which was, ‘You owe me.’ And that’s all she said. And she walked out."
Panettiere said the exchange haunted her afterward as she questioned what her mother "meant" by the comment and "what form of payment" she expected. "It was disappointing to find out that it was money," she said, adding that she had hoped removing the business aspect from their relationship would allow them to reconnect as mother and daughter. "The fact that she didn’t care to have a relationship with me was a tough pill to swallow," she added.
Vogel recently spoke to the Daily Mail, telling the outlet of her estrangement with Panettiere: "We each are entitled to choose our path in life. After 20 years of trauma, chaos, addictions [and] accusations, I felt I had no other option but to choose no contact. There will forever be a lingering hope that she will find her own path to inner peace."
Panettiere's memoir "This Is Me: A Reckoning" is available wherever books are sold starting May 19.
