The actress shares more about the incident in her memoir 'This Is Me: A Reckoning,' out May 19
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- Hayden Panettiere said she was “quite literally out to sea” when she realized she was “in danger” during the encounter
- The actress recalled being led into a small room and placed in a bed next to an “undressed” and “very famous” man
- Panettiere said the experience felt especially painful because it involved someone she had “grown to trust” and viewed as a “protector”
Hayden Panettiere is reflecting on a traumatic experience from her late teens.
During the Monday, May 11 episode of Jay Shetty’s podcast, On Purpose with Jay Shetty, the actress, 36, discussed a chapter from her upcoming memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, in which she recounts being placed in an uncomfortable and frightening situation aboard a boat when she was 18.
“You write about a moment in your career where a friend of yours takes you onto a boat,” Shetty, 38, said during the interview. “You’re led to a room which has an older man in it and then basically told to perform sexual acts.”
Panettiere said though she believed she was mature at the time, she now recognizes how vulnerable she was.
“The fact that I was 18, 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?” she said. “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.”
The actress said her “perspective completely shifted” once she realized she was “in danger,” but by then, she said, “I was quite literally out to sea.”
Panettiere described the incident as both “shocking” and deeply unsettling, recalling how she had initially believed she was simply having a fun night out. “There was no hints of anything like that happening,” she recalled. “So it took me by surprise.”
According to Panettiere, the person who brought her into the situation was someone she had trusted deeply. “It was led by somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector and somebody who had my back,” she shared.
The actress said she was escorted downstairs into a “very small room,” where she says she was placed into bed next to an “undressed” man.
“She physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous,” Panettiere said, adding that he appeared to behave “like this was just an average day for him.”
Credit: Grand Central Publishing
Panettiere said she immediately went 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.’ ”
She said she fled the room and attempted to hide elsewhere on the boat. “There was no jumping off and swimming away,” she said. “And there was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation. I realized that this was nothing new to them.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Panettiere reflected on the emotional impact of feeling betrayed by someone she trusted.
“When you really find somebody that you trust, you hold on to them for dear life and you feel so lucky,” she said. “So to be betrayed like that is just an awful feeling.”
This is Me: A Reckoning by Panettiere is out May 19, wherever books are sold.
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