The 36-year-old first recalled the ordeal in her upcoming memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, but host Jay Shetty asked her to share more details on the incident that left the star shaken. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou write about a moment in your career where a friend of yours takes you onto a boat,\u201d Shetty asked on the episode. \u201cYou\u2019re led to a room which has an older man in it and then basically told to perform sexual acts.\u201d <\/p>\n
Struggling to hold back tears, Panettiere said she was on a night out with friends on a boat at the time and naively didn\u2019t realise she had put herself in a dangerous and vulnerable situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that I was 18, even though I\u2019d lived such a huge life and I thought I was oh so mature at 18 \u2026 scientifically, your frontal lobes don\u2019t develop until we\u2019re what, 25, 26?\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo even though I felt like I could make healthy decisions, safe decisions, I wasn\u2019t capable of being fully aware of what was going on around me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Panettiere claimed somebody she had \u201cgrown to trust\u201d and who she saw as a \u201cprotector\u201d then coaxed her down the stairs into a \u201cvery small\u201d room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean that moment shook me and was shocking,\u201d she began. \u201cShe physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nashville star added that the man \u2013 whose identity she did not reveal \u2013 acted \u201clike this was just an average day for him\u201d as he lay on the bed with his arms folded behind his head. <\/p>\n
With her vice shaky, Panettiere said she went into survival mode and tapped into \u201cthat lion in me, that fire in me\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy hair stood on end and I became ferocious,\u201d she said. \u201cI was like, \u2018This is not happening.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean that moment shook me and was shocking,\u201d she began. \u201cShe physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nashville star added that the man \u2013 whose identity she did not reveal \u2013 acted \u201clike this was just an average day for him\u201d as he lay on the bed with his arms folded behind his head. <\/p>\n
With her vice shaky, Panettiere said she went into survival mode and tapped into \u201cthat lion in me, that fire in me\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy hair stood on end and I became ferocious,\u201d she said. \u201cI was like, \u2018This is not happening.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
At that point, the actress said they were \u201cquite literally out to sea\u201d, so there was no escaping.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had nowhere to hide. And I bolted and I hid wherever I could think of to hide on a boat,\u201d she recalled. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no jumping off and swimming away. And I realised that there was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation, that this was nothing new to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Panettiere said it was a \u201chorrifying event\u201d to go through at 18, but the \u201cbetrayal\u201d she felt from her so-called friend hurt more. <\/p>\n
\u201c[It\u2019s] disappointing when somebody lets you down like that,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019d 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The podcast comes just days after Panettiere came out as bisexual<\/a> in another interview promoting her forthcoming tell-all.<\/p>\n