Hayden Panettiere did not want to sit still. Moments after she said hello via Zoom from her Los Angeles condo, she asked if she could walk back and forth while we talked. The movement helped her process her thoughts. And so, clad in a black hoodie, her blonde hair pulled back tight, Panettiere, a two-time Golden Globe-nominated actress who has lived her life in front of cameras since she was 11 months old, started to pace.<\/p>\n
After a tumultuous decade that involved crippling postpartum depression, addictions to alcohol and Klonopin, losing custody of her daughter, stints in and out of rehab and, finally, sobriety, she\u2019s gearing up for the release of her memoir, \u201cThis Is Me: A Reckoning,\u201d<\/a> out on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Along with returning to acting and becoming a published author, Panettiere, 36, said she has a \u201claundry list of aspirations\u201d for this new phase of life. She\u2019d love to produce and direct, maybe create a jewelry or makeup line and \u2014 what the hell \u2014 perhaps she\u2019ll launch a lifestyle brand. But first, she\u2019s focusing all her energy on the release of the book.<\/p>\n \u201cThis Is Me\u201d chronicles her early years as a child star in soap operas and her breakout role, alongside Denzel Washington, in \u201cRemember the Titans.\u201d<\/a> Her turn as the Texas cheerleader Claire Bennet in the hit NBC series \u201cHeroes\u201d<\/a> had Teen Vogue calling her an \u201call-American beauty\u201d on its cover,<\/a> and tabloids printing photos with captions calling out her cellulite.<\/p>\n Panettiere writes that she suffered from body dysmorphia as a result. This was the early 2000s, an era when the paparazzi were ruthless, especially when it came to young female celebrities like Panettiere, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.<\/p>\n \u201cIt blows my mind that people could be so cruel,\u201d Panettiere said when I asked her about that time. \u201cLooking back as an adult and a mother of a daughter, it\u2019s hard to believe that grown adults were OK with ripping you apart at such a tender age. At any age, really.\u201d<\/p>\n If you ask a celebrity why they finally decided to write a memoir now, they\u2019ll tell you they\u2019re tired of their story being told, often incorrectly, by other people. They\u2019ll explain that they want to reveal their truth, in their words, on their terms. They\u2019ll say it\u2019s time to get honest and raw about the gossip, the past traumas, about whom they did and did not date.<\/p>\n For millennial women like Hilton, Keke Palmer, Lena Dunham<\/a> or Jennette McCurdy<\/a>, those truths often involve revelations of abuse, body image issues and addiction. Panettiere is no exception, and her story also involves grieving the death of her younger brother, Jansen, who dealt with substance abuse. He died in 2023, at 28, due to heart complications.<\/p>\n Panettiere, who worked closely with a collaborator and with Suzanne O\u2019Neill, the executive editor at Grand Central, which is publishing the book, said that writing about her brother was the hardest part of the process.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been three years, and I wish that time healed that kind of loss,\u201d she said. \u201cI hope it keeps his memory alive. He always wanted to be famous, and maybe now he will be.\u201d<\/p>\n The memoir isn\u2019t all grief and struggle. There are stories about her idyllic childhood in the secluded Hudson Valley enclave of Snedens Landing, where she meets famous neighbors like Bill Murray and Bj\u00f6rk. She writes lovingly of her father, an N.Y.P.D. officer and later firefighter who took her to a few auditions but who mostly watched her career from the sidelines.<\/p>\n Later, when Panettiere was 16, she discovered that her father cheated on her mother. She was distraught, but they eventually repaired the relationship.<\/p>\n It was her mother, Lesley Vogel, an actress, who got their 11-month-old into modeling and shuttled her to auditions over the years. Panettiere writes that she appeared in about 50 commercials by the time she was 5.<\/p>\n Her mom wasn\u2019t cruel, but she did push her young daughter to succeed.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Don\u2019t phone it in\u2019 was her favorite line,\u201d Panettiere writes. \u201cIt was my signal to get my act together and reach the top of my game \u2014 stage fright or not.\u201d<\/p>\n When I spoke to Panettiere, she said that neither of her parents had read the book, and that mining those early memories was difficult.<\/p>\n \u201cYou always want to think the best of your parents and see them in the brightest light,\u201d she said. \u201cBut there were a lot of things done with an approach that was not about my mental health or what was emotionally or mentally safe for me to do. That\u2019s a tough realization.\u201d<\/p>\n (Responding to unflattering prepublication reports, her mother told the New York Post that \u201cthe present drama is partially to sell books.\u201d<\/a>)<\/p>\n To access sadness for the camera, Panettiere would imagine the death of a pet. As she got older, the images became darker.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was almost like I became numb to those small sadnesses, and I had to up the ante every time,\u201d she said. \u201cI could connect crying and feeling that kind of emotional pain as something that was going to make people happy with me.\u201d<\/p>\n In the book, she explains that those early connections likely set her on the path to anxiety, depression and substance abuse, writing, \u201cIs it any wonder why I\u2019ve faced so many real struggles in my life?\u201d<\/p>\n Those struggles, and Panettiere\u2019s eventual recovery, were what intrigued Grand Central\u2019s O\u2019Neill, who described her story as \u201criveting.\u201d They spent about two years on the book, looking to find a tone that was confessional and entertaining, but never self-pitying.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing that makes a good memoir is when the author is willing to make herself really vulnerable,\u201d said O\u2019Neill, who has edited memoirs by celebrities like Flea, Mindy Kaling and Abbi Jacobson. \u201cHayden was willing to go there, and show readers how to come back from a dark situation and be stronger for it. It was important to her that she never come across like a victim, or woe is me, and that\u2019s a fine line to walk.\u201d<\/p>\n Panettiere became famous during a time when Harvey Weinstein was still producing movies, and before laws were enforced to punish hackers who posted nude photos of celebrities online.<\/p>\n Her Hollywood is depicted as incredibly dangerous, for young women especially. When she was still a teenager, she writes, an older representative on her team handed her a \u201chappy pill\u201d on the red carpet to pep her up. She found herself at parties with predatory men, fending off sexual advances and inappropriate comments. Yet she felt like she had to keep those encounters to herself.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was terrifying, and I know I am speaking for many young women in my industry who have gone through the same thing,\u201d she said. \u201cSome have chosen to be vocal about it and some are not ready yet or never will be ready to share it. I\u2019m hoping I can open people\u2019s eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2009, Panettiere met and fell in love with the champion boxer Wladimir Klitschko<\/a>. They got engaged, and she gave birth to their daughter, Kaya, in 2014, during her six-season run as country music star Juliette Barnes on \u201cNashville.\u201d<\/a> Postpartum depression led her to alcohol and pills as a way to mask the anxiety she was experiencing.<\/p>\n When Kaya was 3, Klitschko asked Panettiere to sign papers granting him sole custody of their daughter. The tabloids, of course, jumped all over the news. Panettiere\u2019s struggle to find sobriety also got these outlets plenty of clicks. According to Panettiere, the writers and producers on \u201cNashville\u201d used what she was experiencing to inform their story lines. If she was pregnant or battling addiction in real life, then Juliette Barnes was, too.<\/p>\n She never thought to tell them to stop, or to ask for help. Just like when she was a little kid, imagining a pet\u2019s death to force a cry, she fell in line.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was ingrained in me from a very young age. I was a soldier. Never for a second did I think to say, \u2018Hey I\u2019m not comfortable with this.\u2019 I was much more terrified of making them upset and of them not wanting to work with me or hire me again, because I was seen as a difficult actor.\u201d (Series executives did not respond to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n Before she got sober after an eight-month stay in rehab, Panettiere was in an abusive relationship with Brian Hickerson. In 2021, he served time in jail after pleading no contest<\/a> to two felony counts of injuring the actress.<\/p>\n She writes that in working the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, she came to forgive Hickerson. \u201cHe also had a big heart full of pain, just like mine, and I had love for him \u2014 despite what he\u2019d done to me,\u201d she writes. \u201cThose were feelings I knew I\u2019d probably spend my whole life working through.\u201d (In a recent interview with TMZ.com,<\/a> Hickerson didn\u2019t dispute the portrait of their relationship, saying, \u201cIt speaks for itself.\u201d)<\/p>\n Memoirs are about choices. What you choose to reveal, and what you keep close. Panettiere said she \u201cdove into the book headfirst\u201d and wanted to be as honest as possible. As they worked through the memories, O\u2019Neill said she was struck by \u201cthe sheer volume\u201d of incidents in Panettiere\u2019s young life.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s shocking to read it all,\u201d the editor said, \u201cand see how she came back from that.\u201d<\/p>\n