Hayden Panettiere recalls traumatic experience of being put in bed with 'very famous undressed man' aged 18
Hayden Panettiere has recalled a terrifying incident from her teens when someone she thought was a friend 'physically put her' in bed next to an undressed A-lister.
The Heroes actor is currently promoting her new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, and revealed a disturbing allegation in which she'd been put in a frightening position while onboard a boat at the age of 18 during an interview with Jay Shetty on his On Purpose podcast.
"You write about a moment in your career where a friend of yours takes you onto a boat," Shetty asked the 36-year-old actor. "You’re led to a room which has an older man in it and then basically told to perform sexual acts."
Panettiere then explains that she was just 18 at the time of the incident and believed she was mature.
'By the time I realised I was in danger, I was quite literally out to sea'
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Acknowledging that she was now placed in a vulnerable position with a 'very famous' older man, she replied: "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?
"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.
"By the time I realised I was in danger, I was quite literally out to sea."
Recalling the incident as 'shocking' and deeply unsettling, Panettiere explained that she had no idea of the unnamed man's intentions until she was led downstairs into a 'very small room' where he was undressed and waiting for her.
'This was nothing new to them'
"It was led by somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector and somebody who had my back," she explained.
"She physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous."
Panettiere goes on to add that the man behaved as though this was 'an average day' for him, causing her to go into survival mode.
"That lion in me, that fire in me … my hair stood on end and I became ferocious," she recalled. "I was like, ‘This is not happening.’"
Panettiere then said she fled from the room and spent the rest of the evening hiding elsewhere on the boat, as she was unable to get off and make it back to the shop.
"There was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation. I realised that this was nothing new to them," she added.
While promoting her book, Panettiere has also spoken candidly about her relationship with ex-partner Wladimir Klitschko, with whom she shares an 11-year-old daughter, rejecting claims that she 'abandoned' the youngster after their 2018 separation.
"The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be OK with it is heartbreaking," she said, explaining that her daughter had moved to Europe with her father while she sought inpatient treatment for mental health and substance abuse.
"By the time I finally got healthy, I felt like it would have been unfair of me to and selfish of me to try to pull her out away from this life that she had," she added.
"She is happy and healthy mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. She in no way feels abandoned."
Brenna Cooper