Plus: the actress says she was silently paying the price of fame, and how 'Finding Nemo' helped her reclaim her spark

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Viewers watched Hayden Panettiere grow up in front of the cameras as a child star on soap operas One Life to Live and Guiding Light, and later on as a TV show fixture on hits like Heroes and Nashville. But while the actress’ career cemented her as a rising star in Hollywood, she says she was silently paying the price of fame behind the scenes, battling both tabloid scrutiny and the unrealistic expectations that had been placed on her by both outside critics and the people closest to her in her life.

The Golden Globe-nominated actress finally lets her guard down in her new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, which chronicles her career beginnings, upheavals in her personal life, and how “the industry that once felt playful grew unforgiving,” per a description.

Released May 19, This Is Me quickly hit number one on Amazon’s biographies chart just hours after release, where it still sits as of this writing.

While Panettiere was lauded in interviews and on the cover of countless magazines as a smart and savvy “it girl” for a new generation of stars, she writes that her reality was far more complicated. A tumultuous relationship with her mother (who was also her manager) led Panettiere to feel increasingly like a commodity rather than an artist, and the actress writes that she struggled to keep up with expectations on everything from her weight to her work ethic.

Though she continued to achieve success as an adult, Panettiere’s personal life began to suffer, and she writes openly about being in the depths of addiction and domestic abuse. In 2014, Panettiere gave birth to a daughter with boxer Wladimir Klitschko, but she quickly descended into a deep postpartum depression. As she told the hosts of The View earlier this month, she struggled with the desire to be a better mother to her daughter than her mother was to her, but couldn’t get out of a funk that left her bedridden for days at a time. Panettiere relinquished full custody of her daughter Kaya to Klitschko in 2018 amid her struggles with addiction and postpartum, and she writes in the book that, “Not being with her under the same roof [as Kaya] has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life.”

Panettiere also addresses the death of her brother, Jansen, in 2023, and rumored feuds with famous co-stars, among other moments she refers to as “lifequakes” — or “experiences that fractured her sense of self and forced her to rebuild it from the inside out.”

Still, Panettiere says she hopes readers will take away some positives from her experiences, namely understanding that there is a light at the end of every tunnel. As she notes about her brother’s passing, “He would want me to remember that death and loss are part of life, but they allow rebirth if you let them.”

The 36-year-old actress also compares herself to another famous movie star: “I’m like Dory, the resilient little fish in Finding Nemo who just keeps swimming even when she comes face to face with a bunch of sharks,” she writes. “Life can shake you up and tear you down, but even when you’re at your worst, there’s hope, and you have an opportunity to rebuild.”

This Is Me: A Reckoning is released by Grand Central Publishing and has 320 pages.

As the publisher notes read, “In this memoir, Hayden shares a rare and intimate glimpse into her life behind closed doors” and “showcases her most vulnerable role yet. This is her story, on her terms.” Pick up the new book in hardcover, for Kindle, or as an audiobook on Amazon.com here.