“So, if the incident happened when she was 18, Blunt’s not your guy to start with.”
He did admit they’d arrived together and “had been flirty throughout and had gone to the afterparty together”, but said that didn’t line up with anything else.
Some social media users have speculated that James Blunt was the unnamed man on the yacht in Hayden Panettiere’s book. Photo / Getty Images
Blunt has since reshared the article on X.
Piper added that they were photographed on a boat the next day, smiling and having fun, noting the pair’s continued public appearances together.
“It takes nothing to work out that the cabin incident was the first and last time she met the man,” he said.
“So, pictures of Blunt and Panettiere at the amfAR charity event and together on the boat again the next day mean only one thing – he’s really not your man.”
Speaking on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast in May, Panettiere gave a fuller account of the yacht episode. She said what began as a social outing with friends became a situation that left her feeling vulnerable and unsafe.
Panettiere said a woman she trusted and regarded as a protector guided her below deck.
“She physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous,” Panettiere recalled.
“There was no jumping off and swimming away,” she added. “And there was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation. I realised that this was nothing new to them.”
Once the woman left, she stopped what was happening.
“I don’t know what she said to you, but this is not going to happen,” she recalled telling the man.
The incident has made headlines following Panettiere’s death earlier this month.
The actress was found unresponsive at a residence in South Carolina after an acquaintance called emergency services.
Her death came only three months after the publication of her memoir.
The book became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller and addressed Panettiere’s experiences as a child star as well as addiction and recovery, postpartum depression, trauma, domestic abuse and the death of her younger brother, actor Jansen Panettiere, at 28 in 2023.
Hayden had previously spoken publicly about her struggles with alcohol and opioid addiction.
She is survived by her daughter Kaya, 11, whom she shared with former fiance Wladimir Klitschko, 50, the Ukrainian former heavyweight boxing world champion.