Booking an acting role before you’ve even finished teething seems to take two ingredients: boundless confidence and parents determined to get you in front of a camera.
That’s the impression left by Hayden Panettiere’s new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, where she describes the unsettling realities of growing up famous and what it can demand from a child.
The 36-year-old Heroes actor says show business was in her orbit from the beginning. Her mother, Lesley Vogel — who previously acted on soap operas — helped secure her first job in a toy-train commercial when Panettiere was only 11 months old.
From there, the pace barely slowed. In the book, Panettiere recounts being shuttled from job to job as her mother pursued opportunities, including one moment she says involved Vogel literally supergluing her baby teeth back in place for a shoot.
Vogel’s push reportedly landed Panettiere a steady stream of commercials and soap roles, including The Guiding Light and One Life to Live, all before she reached double digits.
Yet in This Is Me, Panettiere connects those early years to lasting fallout, revealing she now has a no-contact relationship with her mother.
One particularly striking episode comes from the period when Panettiere was filming commercials while navigating the typical “missing teeth” stage most kids go through.
In her telling, even a normal childhood gap could become a threat on set: if a smile no longer matched a headshot, a child actor could be swapped out. Panettiere says her mother’s solution was extreme — reattaching lost teeth with superglue.
It began with a dentist visit intended to help cover an early gap. “A nice dental assistant took a mold of my top teeth, and Dr. Bob explained to me and Mom that a flipper is a retainer with an acrylic ‘palate,’” Panettiere wrote.
She continued: “However, because a flipper doesn’t straighten anything, there are no wires. Instead, stuck to the front of the palate is an artificial tooth that fits squarely where the missing tooth used to be. When I put the flipper in my mouth, no one would know I’d lost a tooth.”
The dentist suggested using Fixodent — typically used for dentures — to keep everything secure. But Panettiere says that during a later shoot in Chicago, another tooth came out unexpectedly.
As Panettiere tells it, her mother improvised on the spot: “Give me the tooth you lost. And cross your fingers.” Panettiere recalls: “I dutifully handed Mom the tooth and watched her squeeze a dab of superglue onto it. Then she affixed the tooth to the flipper.”
Against all odds, she says the quick fix held.
She shared: “Partly in horror and partly out of respect for the MacGyver-like skills I had no idea she possessed, I stepped back to give Mom some room.
“A few seconds later, Mom handed me the flipper, now containing two teeth, and I slipped it tentatively into my mouth. A little voice in my head told me that if the superglue wasn’t dry, I was going to live with this flipper for all eternity.
“I closed my mouth and licked my top teeth. Then I opened my mouth and smiled.”
Panettiere frames it as a snapshot of the intense expectations she lived with, while also admitting she felt a sense of victory afterward: “Lisp be damned, I got the job.”
Vogel, now 70, has publicly pushed back against her daughter’s claims, calling Panettiere ‘entitled’ and suggesting the revelations are being shared ‘partially to sell books’.
In comments provided to Page Six, Vogel offered a harsh assessment of her daughter, saying: “There is a personality ‘style’ which manifests as a need for control, entitlement and a lack of empathy.
“The major fear is that someone will see through the mask they present to the world and discover who they truthfully are.”
The rift appears to have deepened after the death of Panettiere’s brother in 2023, who died at 28 due to a heart abnormality. Vogel said: “After 20 years of trauma, I took the advice of professionals and chose the no-contact route. As many parents of entertainment children [know], we are all too familiar with the painful observation of watching the self-destructive paths they sometimes choose.
“No parent hopes for this scenario; we want our children to be the best of themselves and live a peaceful, joyful life!
“Sadly, this is out of our control. You cannot save someone who does not want to be saved. Radical acceptance is the most difficult challenge any parent must embrace. Unfortunately, I have seen a great deal of such in my life experience.”
“It was so false,” Panettiere, 36, told Entertainment Tonight, “When people ask me about the relationship, if there’s any hope for the future, I always say I leave that door cracked open in case.”
She also said: “Because who doesn’t want a relationship with their mother? You pray for it and hope it eventually comes. But she slammed that door pretty hard in my face. She has very clearly prioritized herself, which I should not be shocked by.”
Panettiere has additionally reflected on how the dynamic shaped her personality and self-worth. “It’s so ingrained in me to be a people pleaser. I went on set, and it was all about being professional, nailing it and always hitting my mark,” she said.
“I had to be perfect. It was nice to hear positive feedback from people like the directors or producers, but without [my mom’s], nothing else mattered,” she told US Weekly ahead of her memoir’s release.
“I felt like I had an identity crisis at 12 years old. I didn’t know who I was.”