Hayden Panettiere Says She Was 'Groomed' and 'Pushed into' Acting as a Child: 'No Was Never an Option'
Hayden Panettiere Says She Was 'Groomed' and 'Pushed into' Acting as a Child: 'No Was Never an Option'
Deirdre DurkanThu, May 14, 2026 at 7:20 PM UTC
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Hayden Panettiere in 2005; Panettiere in 2023
Credit: J. Merritt/FilmMagic; Nina Westervelt/Variety via Getty
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Hayden Panettiere said she was “groomed” and “pushed into” acting as a child
The actress revealed years of people-pleasing and pressure contributed to substance abuse struggles later in life
Panettiere said she would support daughter Kaya pursuing acting but only after exploring life outside Hollywood first
Hayden Panettiere feels like she was forced into working as a child star.
The actress, now 36, opened up about starting her career as a baby and the long-lasting impact it had on her in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Thursday, May 14, ahead of the May 19 release of her memoir,This Is Me: A Reckoning.
“I think it’s the way I was raised,” Panettiere said when asked about feeling pressure to constantly work and honor commitments. “I was groomed. I was like a little soldier and I always have been. No was never an option. It was just, 'Here are your scenes, here’s your dialogue, memorize it, hit the marks, do what your director tells you to do.' I took my marching orders.”
Panettiere began acting in 1990 before she was 1 year old, first appearing in commercial before transitioning into TV work. By age 4 she landed the role of Sarah Roberts on the soap opera One Life to Live, on which she starred from 1994 to 1997.
She later appeared on Guiding Light as Lizzie Spaulding and voiced Dot in Pixar’s A Bug’s Life before gaining wider recognition in films like Remember the Titans. Panettiere eventually became a household name through starring roles on shows like Heroes and Nashville.
Hayden Panettiere for 'Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke' (1999)
Credit: CBS via Getty
Looking back, Panettiere said she did not initially realize how abnormal her upbringing in the entertainment industry had been.
“When I started self-harming in the form of substance abuse,” she said of when things shifted for her. “My people-pleasing had built up and up, it was anger and anxiety and frustration. My life revolved around other people, and I lived to make other people happy and I was the last one on the list.”
“The pressure of that built and built and just exploded,” she continued. “I started figuring out any way I could get through it. Sometimes they’ll say in treatment that, believe it or not, our addictions probably saved us at a certain point.”
Credit: Grand Central Publishing
Even after recognizing those unhealthy patterns, Panettiere admitted it remained difficult to advocate for herself professionally.
“No,” she said when asked whether it became easier to make business decisions for herself. “Then I was dealing with all those years of being the yes man and not sticking up for myself. Never saying no, I don’t feel comfortable doing that or telling people that I’m overworked.”
“I would push myself to do whatever they wanted on set, but it was too much for any one person,” she added.
Hayden Panettiere on March 6, 2023
Credit: ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty
The actress also reflected on whether she would want her younger self to follow the same path into Hollywood, especially as her daughter Kaya has started taking an interest in acting.
“That’s the thing is I will always wonder, if I would have gravitated naturally towards acting if I had not been pushed into it,” Panettiere said. “But I see my daughter, at 11 years old, taking an interest.”
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“I will say, please go to college, please try things out,” she continued. “And if you really love it, then I will support you wholeheartedly. And if she doesn’t like it, she can get out. Her world doesn’t have to revolve around that.”
Panettiere added that growing up in the business left her without a traditional backup plan outside the entertainment industry. “I never had anything to fall back on. I never went to college. There’s no going back,” she told THR.
The star recently opened up about her estranged relationship with her mother, Lesley Vogel, who managed her career from childhood, while appearing on Jay Shetty’s podcast, On Purpose with Jay Shetty.
“Everything was business,” she recalled. “I became the confidant and the assistant and the therapist and the shoulder to cry on and everything but her child.”
The Heroes alum said she eventually worked up the courage to sever their professional relationship when she was 19 while filming the hit NBC show.
“I said to her, ‘I don’t want us to work together anymore. I just want you to be my mom,’ ” Panettiere recalled.
Panettiere and mother, Lesley Vogel
Credit: Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic
But the response she says she received left a lasting impact. “I remember being hopeful,” Panettiere said. “But I also wasn’t expecting the reaction that I got, which was, ‘You owe me.’ And that’s all she said. And she walked out.”
Panettiere said the exchange haunted her afterward as she questioned what her mother “meant” by the comment and “what form of payment” she expected.
“It was disappointing to find out that it was money,” she said, adding that she had hoped removing the business aspect from their relationship would allow them to reconnect as mother and daughter.
“The fact that she didn’t care to have a relationship with me was a tough pill to swallow,” she added.
Vogel recently spoke to the Daily Mail, telling the outlet of her estrangement with Panettiere: "We each are entitled to choose our path in life. After 20 years of trauma, chaos, addictions [and] accusations, I felt I had no other option but to choose no contact. There will forever be a lingering hope that she will find her own path to inner peace."
This Is Me: A Reckoningby Panettiere is out May 19, wherever books are sold.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
