Content Advisory: This article discusses an alleged incident involving coercion, fear, and betrayal. Reader discretion is advised.
Hayden Panettiere is opening up about a frightening moment she says happened when she was just 18.
The actress, now 36, discussed the experience during the May 11 episode of ‘On Purpose with Jay Shetty’. The story also appears in her upcoming memoir, ‘This Is Me: A Reckoning’, which is set for release on May 19.
During the interview, Shetty referenced a chapter in which Panettiere writes about being taken onto a boat by someone she trusted, then led into a room with an older man and told to perform physical acts.
Panettiere said she once believed she was mature enough to handle the world around her. Looking back, she sees it differently.
Hayden Panettiere Says She Realized She Was In Danger
“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,” Panettiere said, before noting that the brain is still developing well into a person’s 20s.
She added that while she believed she could make safe decisions at the time, she now feels she was not fully able to understand what was happening around her.
The actress said her “perspective completely shifted” once she realized she was “in danger.” The problem was where she was.
“I was quite literally out to sea,” she said.
Panettiere said the night had not seemed threatening at first. She thought she was simply out having fun. “There was no hints of anything like that happening,” she said. “So it took me by surprise.”
Actress Says She Was Betrayed By Someone She Trusted
Panettiere said one of the most painful parts was that the situation was allegedly arranged by someone she had grown to trust.
“It was led by somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector and somebody who had my back,” she said.
According to Panettiere, that person brought her downstairs into a “very small room” and placed her in bed next to an unclothed man who was “very famous.” “She physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous,” Panettiere said.
She added that the man appeared to act as if the situation was normal. That was when Panettiere says something in her switched on. “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.’”
Panettiere Says She Went Into Survival Mode
Panettiere said she escaped the room and tried to hide elsewhere on the boat. But she also understood how trapped she was.
“There was no jumping off and swimming away,” she said.
She added that she did not believe anyone nearby would show empathy for what she was going through.
“I realized that this was nothing new to them,” she said.
Panettiere also spoke about the lasting pain of betrayal. “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.”
Her memoir, ‘This Is Me: A Reckoning’, is expected to reveal more about the incident when it arrives on May 19.
