Hayden Panettiere is speaking openly about how difficult it was to grow up in the spotlight.
Now 36, the actor began working extremely early — appearing in a commercial before she had even turned one — and says the experience came with intense expectations and pressure to perform.
Panettiere’s career took off when she was cast in the soap opera One Life to Live at just four years old.
She’s revisiting those early years, and what followed, in a new memoir titled This Is Me: A Reckoning, set for release on May 19.
Ahead of the book’s publication, Panettiere spoke with The Hollywood Reporter and described the mindset she felt pushed into as a child performer — an environment where compliance and perfection were treated as the default.
“I was groomed. I was like a little soldier and I always have been. No was never an option. It was just, ‘Here are your scenes, here’s your dialogue, memorize it,” she said.
“Hit the marks, do what your director tells you to do.’ I took my marching orders.”
When asked when she recognized that what she’d experienced was ‘abnormal,’ Panettiere said it became clear as she began harming herself through addiction.
She was later asked when she realized she was being groomed in a way that was ‘abnormal,’ as the star answered: “When I started self-harming in the form of substance abuse.”
Panettiere also shared that she developed a habit of putting others first, explaining she became a ‘people pleaser’ who ‘lived to make other people happy’.
As the pressure built over time, she said she eventually “explod[ed],” and acknowledged she’s still trying to fully reclaim her career and sense of agency.
Earlier this month, Panettiere publicly identified as bisexual — something she also addresses in the memoir — and said the reaction she’s received has been “heartwarming.”
Speaking to US Weekly before the memoir’s release, the Nashville star explained she hadn’t felt able to share that part of herself previously, saying the timing never seemed right amid the expectations placed on her.
“It was either I was too young, and I was being forced to be perfect at all times. I was not encouraged to just be myself,” she said.
Panettiere is also a mother to 11-year-old daughter Kayla, whom she shares with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko. The two were together on and off for nine years before ending their relationship in 2018.
More recently, Panettiere pushed back against claims that she had “abandoned” her child while struggling with addiction.
After the split, Kayla moved to Ukraine with her father, and Panettiere has said they continue to see each other regularly.
In an interview with Jay Shetty, the actor said: The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be okay with it is heartbreaking.”
“It couldn’t be further from the truth.”
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This Is Me: A Reckoning, will be released on May 19.