Actress Hayden Panettiere has revealed disturbing new details about an incident she says occurred when she was 18 years old and attending a celebrity-filled yacht gathering in the South of France.
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In her new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, Panettiere described a shocking incident she previously mentioned on Jay Shetty’s podcast On Purpose. In her memoir, she tells the story with more detail and hints at the man she was pushed to sleep with.
When she was 18, Hayden Panettiere attended a super yacht filled with celebrities in the south of France. A close friend at the time was with her, someone Panettiere learned to trust. In place of her real name, Panettiere refers to her as Stella McAmis.
Panettiere said McAmis led her to a private cabin, where she found a “famous thirty-something British singer-songwriter” shirtless in bed. “‘Oh my God,’ I thought. ‘Is he naked under there?'” she thought.
McAmis then whispered, “I want you to get in bed with him. He has a huge d–k,” before leaving them alone.
Hayden Panettiere Left Alone With Shirtless British Singer
Used to being managed as a child star, she initially went to follow Stella McAmis’ orders, despite being terrified.
But then she spoke up, and said, “Look, I don’t know what she said to you, but this is not going to happen.” She hurriedly left and went to leave the yacht.
Panettiere “felt like [she’d] been kicked in the face” by her friend. “She’d confided in me, pampered me, and treated me like her best friend — then turned around and treated me like a call girl. I deserved better than that, by a lot.”
She purposefully omitted the names of the celebrities involved due to the fear of legal action. She also wants to avoid uncomfortable run-ins with celebrities she may bump into again.
Panettiere, now 36, rose to fame as a child actor before starring in the NBC series Heroes and later earning Golden Globe nominations for her role in Nashville. In recent interviews, she said she wants to speak openly about painful experiences that she kept private for years.