Hayden Panettiere Recalls Disturbing Experience With Oscar Winner At 19
In her new book This is Me: A Reckoning, Hayden Panettiere discusses a tough situation which happened to her when she was still a nobody in the business.
At the age of 36, the actress whose “Nashville” is her most recognized work tells that when she was only 19 years old, a well-known actor and director, a winner of the Oscar, showed her his genitals. She considers that this was one of the many times she was scared since as a young woman trying to make it in Hollywood.
Later that night, Panettiere said that a familiar person came without any prior announcement. This person brought word of a gathering – loosely tied to entertainment circles – at a place in Los Feliz. The place of the event was just a flat, nothing official. She called it one of those unofficial parties that someone comes to know of from the grapevine.
That kind of gathering was her complete opposite. The people present included just her friend plus some men hanging out, chatting, sipping drinks, while passing around a joint. She stayed clear of places where behavior like that went down.
She shares an argument-related encounter with the Oscar-winning actor in her memoir
In her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, Hayden Panettiere talks about feeling a little scared just after going to an industry party in Los Feliz, California, when she was 19 years old.
“These men looked like they were way too comfortable with each other, like they knew something I didn’t, ” the actress says.
Panettiere said she was getting ready to leave after about 30 minutes when an Oscar-winning actor and director supposedly came up to her. The way she tells it, he said goodnight to her and told her to “be careful” because someone had spit gum on the floor and he had got some on his pants. Then, he allegedly got her to look down.
“I looked down and stepped back in shock, ” Panettiere writes. “This very famous, award-winning actor’s testicles were hanging out of his fly which was unzipped.”
Hayden Recalls Being Shocked by Hollywood Event in Memoir
Still, Hayden Panettiere feels shaken by what happened with an Academy Award–winning actor – though at first, she didn’t think of it as something that injured her.
“Men in Hollywood had always been kind and respectful around me,” the actress writes in her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning. “There may have been a peck on the lips here and an inappropriate comment there, but nothing had crossed a line.”
Still, Panettiere says she felt stunned – though the event didn’t cause her harm. Surprised, yes, even when untouched by injury.
Later in the book, the woman known for Bring It On talks about dating Brian Hickerson. She describes moments when he hurt her physically. Some events led to the police getting involved. Several times, authorities stepped in during fights between them. Her account includes more than one arrest linked to those conflicts.
Hayden Panettiere opens up in her memoir about her sexuality, a Heroes co-star relationship, and family struggles.
She reminisces about her early romance with Milo Ventimiglia, a fellow actor from Heroes, when she was 18, and he was 29 – she even reveals that she is bisexual. Besides examining the love affairs, the book also reveals a few difficulties the actress experienced with her family.
In the same publication, Panettiere talks about the conflict with her separated mother, Lesley Vogel, who apart from being her manager during her ascendance to stardom was also her mother.
Vogel has since made public some of her responses to the book’s allegations, telling Page Six, she feels “the present drama is partly to sell books.”
