Hayden Panettiere has shared details about the identity of the ‘undressed’ anonymous celebrity she was put in bed with when she was just 18-years-old.
The Heroes star, 36, has claimed in her memoir that she was taken into a cabin on a yacht where a 30-something British musician was waiting wearing only a bed sheet.
Panettiere wrote about the ordeal in her book, This Is Me: A Reckoning, after first sharing the traumatic experience on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast.
Writing in a chapter titled, Trust, Hayden says how she was traveling on a super yacht with other celebrities cruising around the South of France.
Panettiere says that she was traveling with a ‘trusted’ female friend, who ultimately encouraged her to get into bed with the singer.
According to the extract shared by People, the women spent multiple days aboard the yacht, in which they swam in the sea, danced long into the night and rubbed elbows with the ship’s other famous passengers.
But Panettiere alleges that her trip took a more disturbing course one night, when her trusted friend interrupted her dinner to ask her to come below deck to meet someone.
Hayden Panettiere has shared details about the identity of the undressed anonymous celebrity she was put in bed with when she was just 18-years-old; pictured in 2022
In her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning – released on Tuesday – Panettiere reveals how her close female friend allegedly served her up to an anonymous ‘thirtysomething British singer–songwriter’ on a yacht off the South of France
After stepping into a private cabin, she writes that she came face-to-face with a ‘famous thirtysomething British singer–songwriter’ who was shirtless in his bed, with the sheets covering his lower body.
‘”Oh my God,” I thought. “Is he naked under there?”‘ Panettiere writes.
She adds that her friend then whispered, ‘I want you to get in bed with him,’ then left her and the unnamed man alone in his cabin.
Panettiere writes that she did as she was told at first, but her mind and body soon became disconnected.
‘My body no longer felt like my own,’ she writes.
According to the publication, Panettiere adds that her experiences as a child actor who was constantly being ‘managed’ by adults had instilled in her a sense of blind trust in others, even when her instincts suggested that was unwise.
‘As soon as the door clicked closed, my survival instinct kicked in,’ she continues.
Panettiere claims that she told the famous anonymous man, ‘Look . . . I don’t know what she said to you, but this is not going to happen.’
Then, she ran out of the room and back to her cabin, where she booked a hotel on the mainland for safer accommodations and prepared to disembark.
Panettiere, who says the incident made her feel as if she had been betrayed by her friend, describes it as feeling as if she had been ‘kicked in the face.’
‘She’d confided in me, pampered me and treated me like her best friend – then turned around and treated me like a call girl,’ Panettiere alleges.
Panettiere writes that her friend led her to a private cabin where the famous man was undressed and under his sheets. Her friend allegedly whispered, ‘I want you to get in bed with him’; pictured in a publicity still for Heroes from 2006
The Daily Mail has reached out to Panettiere’s representatives for comment but has not yet received a response.
The actress, who recently came out as bisexual, previously admitted she realizes now how naive she was about the danger she was in during a conversation last week on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast.
Shetty said: ‘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.’
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.’
Panettiere claims 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.’
The actress said she was led downstairs into a small room before being put in bed with the unidentified man, who she says behaved ‘like this was just an average day for him.’
Nashville star Panettiere said she immediately became ‘ferocious’, adding: ‘That lion in me, that fire in me… my hair stood on end…
‘I was like, “This is not happening”‘ before running out of the room and trying to hide.
Hayden Panettiere broke down in tears as she relived a traumatic experience which saw her put in bed with an ‘very famous man’ when she was aged just 18
The Heroes actress, 36, shocked fans as she revealed she was coerced into getting in bed with the ‘undressed’ older celebrity and ‘told to perform sexual acts’ – pictured 2007 aged 18 in Heroes as Claire Bennet
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‘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.
The revelation comes days after Panettiere came out as bisexual after years of feeling ‘forced to be perfect’ in order to avoid public scrutiny.
‘It’s sad that I had to wait till I was 36 years old to share that part of me, but better late than never, right?’ the Nashville alum told Us Weekly last week.
‘I’ve chosen to share it with the world, I’m comfortable saying I’m bisexual. I’m comfortable to confidently say that, yes, I am bisexual. I said it!’
Despite having little privacy due to ‘paparazzi always outside waiting for me,’ Panettiere still managed to secretly date women, whom she preferred to men from ‘a very, very young age.’
‘[I was] much more into women,’ the two-time Golden Globe nominee said.
‘But, yeah, I have explored it, but I don’t think I ever had the courage, because I hadn’t shared this with anybody.
‘I didn’t really have the courage to throw myself fully, emotionally into it, because then if I did fall in love, that wasn’t something that I wanted to ever have to hide. I didn’t feel confident enough, and I was too afraid to really let that part of me explore that part of me.’
Panettiere worried it would look like she was ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ during a ‘period of time, where it felt like people coming out, especially women coming out, and saying that they were bisexual, or liked girls, was a fad.’
Panettiere has only ever publicly dated men and she most recently split from convicted felon Brian Hickerson in 2020 following his eight domestic violence arrests. Above, together in 2019
The Grammy-nominated narrator lost custody of her 11-year-old daughter, Kaya Evdokia Klitschko, with ex-fiancé – retired heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko – whom she amicably split from in 2018 after their nine-year on/off relationship. Above, together in 2013
Panettiere also previously dated her much older Heroes co-star Milo Ventimiglia (above in 2007), retired NFL wide receiver Scotty McKnight, Welsh TV presenter Steve Jones, singer Jesse McCartney, The Hills alum Stephen Colletti and the late Pink Taco founder Harry Morton
The Grammy-nominated narrator decided to be ‘completely brutally honest’ about her sexuality during the two years she spent writing her memoir.
Panettiere has only ever publicly dated men and she most recently split from convicted felon Brian Hickerson in 2020 following his eight domestic violence arrests.
She lost custody of her 11-year-old daughter Kaya Evdokia Klitschko with ex-fiancé – retired heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko – whom she amicably split from in 2018 after their nine-year on/off relationship.
The Equal Means Equal activist also previously dated her much older Heroes co-star Milo Ventimiglia, retired NFL wide receiver Scotty McKnight, Welsh TV presenter Steve Jones, singer Jesse McCartney, The Hills alum Stephen Colletti and the late Pink Taco founder Harry Morton.
Panettiere is scheduled to kick off her four-date This Is Me book tour at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square in her native New York City on May 19.
