Hayden Panettiere has alleged that an “Oscar winning” actor exposed himself at an industry party when she was 19.
Panettiere, who has worked in entertainment since she was 11 months old, has recently published a memoir titled This Is Me: A Reckoning.
In the book, the Nashville actor says an Oscar-winning figure (whom she does not identify) “flashed his testicles” during a gathering at a friend’s apartment in California.
She describes the event as a relatively small hangout rather than a packed party, saying it was mainly her, her friend, and a “small group of men” who were drinking and smoking.
The Scream star writes that she felt uneasy during the get-together even before the alleged incident took place.
“These men seemed to be a little too comfortable together, like they knew something I didn’t,” she wrote.
According to her account, about an hour later she stood up to leave, and that’s when the unnamed Oscar winner approached her.
She says he warned her to be careful as she headed out.
“Someone spit their gum out somewhere, and I got some on my pants,” she claimed he said, before allegedly telling her to look down.
Recalling what happened next, she wrote:
“I looked down and recoiled. “This well-respected, award-winning actor’s testicles were hanging out from his unzipped fly.”
Panettiere, now 34, says she wasn’t “hurt” by the alleged incident, but that it left her stunned.
Earlier in the memoir, she reflects that she had generally felt men in Hollywood behaved appropriately toward her.
“There may have been a peck on the lips here and an inappropriate comment there, but nothing had crossed a line,” she penned.
Ahead of the book’s release, Panettiere—who has recently publicly identified as bisexual—also spoke about feeling “groomed” and pushed into being a child performer.
As she has described, her on-screen debut came before she turned one, when she appeared in a commercial. She later became widely recognized after joining the soap One Life to Live at age four.
In comments to The Hollywood Reporter about her early career, she said:
“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.
“Hit the marks, do what your director tells you to do.’ I took my marching orders.”