Hayden Panettiere has shared more details about her encounter with a “famous 30-something British singer” on a yacht when she was just 18 years old.
Having previously spoken about the incident on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, the actress’ newly-released memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning has revealed new details.
In a chapter entitled Trust, Panettiere recalls how a woman in a trusted position, whom she’d considered a friend, ordered her into bed with the “undressed” singer during a trip to the South of France.
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According to Panettiere, the incident occurred on what she described as a “super yacht” of celebrities, where she recalled spending days swimming in the Mediterranean, dancing until sunrise and mingling with A-list guests.
But things took a dark turn towards the end of the idyllic trip, when her friend and confidante instructed her her to “come downstairs to meet someone.”
There, she found the “30-something singer” shirtless in bed – mostly covered by the sheets.
“‘Oh my God,’ I thought. ‘Is he naked under there?'” she recalled.
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She claimed her friend then told her “I want you to get in bed with him,” before exiting the room and leaving the two of them alone together.
Despite the shock of the scenario, she initially complied, only to begin disconnecting mentally from her surroundings.
”My body no longer felt like my own,” she revealed in the memoir.
After years of being managed as an actress by adults, she had been conditioned to trust them. But this all changed in a heartbeat.
“As soon as the door clicked closed, my survival instinct kicked in,” she wrote.
She went on to tell the man “‘Look… I don’t know what she said to you, but this is not going to happen,'” before walking out.
According to Panettiere, that had been the final straw, and she immediately beelined for her cabin to pack her things and depart the yacht.
“I felt like I’d been kicked in the face,” she said.
“She’d confided in me, pampered me and treated me like her best friend — then turned around and treated me like a call girl.”
She had previously revealed in the podcast interview with Shetty that there’d been no red flags aboard the yacht prior to that incident – but as soon as it occurred, her entire perspective shifted.
“There was no jumping off and swimming away,” she added.
“And there was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation. I realized that this was nothing new to them.”
When previously asked by the Hollywood Reporter about why she’d opted to redact the names of those involved, she revealed it was down to the individuals still being involved closely with the industry.
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“They’re people I could run into again,” she said. “I didn’t want to put myself in that position.”
“Things happened a long time ago, but it was to protect me and my company from being sued by some very pissed-off famous people.”
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