Hayden Panettiere spoke candidly about the ‘heartbreaking’ decision to give up custody of her daughter amid struggles with addiction and postpartum depression.
The actress, 36, signed over custody of Kaya, now 11, to ex-fiance Wladimir Klitschko, 50, back in 2018. Her daughter currently lives in Europe with the former professional boxer, while Panettiere resides in the United States.
The Nashville star revealed she ‘desperately’ needed help at the time and insisted that Kaya does not feel ‘abandoned’ while appearing on Monday’s episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast.
‘The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be okay with it is heartbreaking. Couldn’t be further from the truth,’ Panettiere said.
‘I was struggling with mental health and anxiety and postpartum and having to act my way through it, and just feeling like I completely lost myself,’ she added.
Panettiere – who also spoke of being put in bed with a ‘famous undressed man’ at just 18 – said that she was spiraling in her personal life and that it was her idea to seek help.
Hayden Panettiere, 36, spoke candidly about the ‘heartbreaking’ decision to give up custody of her daughter amid struggles with addiction and postpartum depression
The actress signed over custody of Kaya, now 11, to her ex-fiancé, Wladimir Klitschko, 50, back in 2018. Above, the trio in a throwback photo
‘A misconception is that I have been in the past forced into treatment, when in fact I have been the one who sought it out, who was saying I desperately need help. I know that this is going to look terrible, but I cannot live like this.’
As for her current relationship with Kaya, Panettiere said they have a strong bond and that they see each other frequently.
‘I have an incredible relationship with her. I travel as much as I can, I see her. I do spend a lot of time on FaceTime with her. But we talk about really deep things. We have a really intense, incredible bond, and I’m very grateful for that.’
‘I know that she knows that she has two parents who would do anything in the world to make sure that she is happy and healthy mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually and she in no way feels abandoned.’
Elsewhere on the podcast, she discussed her battle with postpartum depression.
‘From a young age, I always dreamt of becoming a mom. It was something that I always knew that I would be, always wanted to be. And I had all these ideas in my head of the kind of mother that I was going to be.’
‘I had this beautiful plan in my head. And then I had my daughter, and I knew something was just terribly, terribly wrong.’
She said that there is a lot of ‘stigma’ and ‘misunderstanding’ around postpartum depression.
The star said she ‘desperately’ needed help at the time and insisted that Kaya does not feel ‘abandoned’ while appearing on Monday’s episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast
‘The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be okay with it is heartbreaking. Couldn’t be further from the truth,’ Panettiere said
‘I was struggling with mental health and anxiety and postpartum and having to act my way through it, and just feeling like I completely lost myself,’ she added
‘I have an incredible relationship with her. I travel as much as I can, I see her. I do spend a lot of time on FaceTime with her. But we talk about really deep things,’ she shared
Elsewhere in the interview, she admitted that when Klitschko (above, with Kaya in 2020) first told her he thought it would be best for their daughter to live in Europe with him, she did not ‘have a good reaction to it’
‘It’s on a scale. And, fortunately, I never felt any hostility or negativity towards my child. But I wasn’t connecting with her the way that I knew I should be.’
Panettiere said she was full of ‘stress’ and ‘anxiety’ all the time.’
‘I was miserable. I was in tears all the time,’ she said, adding that she was trying to self-medicate with alcohol, which ultimately made things worse.
She praised her ex Klitschko for being ‘incredibly supportive’ even though ‘he had no idea what was going on.’
The actress said that when her daughter was about four months old, she went to Klitschko and told him, ‘I need help. I can’t live like this anymore. Something is terribly wrong. And he said, “Okay, let’s get you some help.”‘
Panettiere then went to a facility where she was treated for ‘alcoholism’ but not postpartum depression, which caused her to feel ‘unfixable.’
‘I had this gorgeous, sweet angel child, healthy. I was so lucky and blessed. And I was just a mess. And there was nothing I could do to fix it properly.’
She admitted that when Klitschko first told her he thought it would be best for their daughter to live in Europe with him, she did not ‘have a good reaction to it.’
‘I went like a mother lion. I would have burnt the world down for my child. So that was incredibly difficult.’
Panettiere said that by the time her health improved, she felt Kaya had already built a wonderful life in Europe and it would have been ‘selfish’ to uproot her.
Panettiere’s downward spiral with postpartum depression not only led to the end of her nine-year on/off relationship with the retired heavyweight boxer in 2018, but also to her feeling like she was ‘incapable of being a semi-decent mom.’ Above, the former couple in 2011
The Heroes alum recently told Us Weekly that giving up custody ‘was a living nightmare.’
‘There’s so much of me that wanted to fight, but I had to ultimately take into consideration the most important thing, which was how this was all going to affect my daughter.’
‘Sometimes that means having to do the hardest things in the world, for their sake. Wlad is an incredible father, and I know he was doing what he felt was best for our daughter.’
Panettiere’s downward spiral with postpartum depression not only led to the end of her nine-year on/off relationship with the retired heavyweight boxer in 2018, but she felt like she was ‘incapable of being a semi-decent mom.’
‘I was nowhere near the mom that I had sworn to myself that one day I was going to be and that was devastating,’ the two-time Golden Globe nominee said.
Elsewhere in the interview, Panettiere fought back tears as she relived a traumatic experience which saw her put in bed with a ‘very famous man’ when she was aged just 18.
The actress, who recently came out as bisexual, shocked fans as she revealed she was coerced into getting into bed with the ‘undressed’ older celebrity while aboard a boat.
Panettiere further discussed the harrowing incident – which is chronicled in her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning – on Shetty’s podcast, admitting she realizes now how naive she was about the danger she was in.
‘You write about a moment in your career where a friend of yours takes you onto a boat. You’re led to a room which has an older man in it and then basically told to perform sexual acts,’ Shetty said.
Panettiere responded: ‘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?’
‘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.’
Elsewhere in the interview, Panettiere fought back tears as she relived a traumatic experience which saw her put in bed with a ‘very famous man’ when she was aged just 18. Above, in 2005
Panettiere claimed the person who led her into the shocking situation was a friend who she trusted and saw as a ‘protector’ before they ‘physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous.’
‘I was like, “This is not happening”‘ before running out of the room and trying to hide.’
‘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.’
Panettiere shot to fame in 2006, aged 17, playing Claire Bennet – a high-school cheerleader who can spontaneously regenerate – on Heroes.
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