Hayden Panettiere shares new details of boat incident with ‘famous thirtysomething British singer-songwriter’

Key Points

• Hayden Panettiere is reflecting on an incident involving an unnamed musician in her new memoir.

• The actress wrote that her friend who got her into the situation treated her like a “call girl.” “I deserved better than that, by a lot.”

• This Is Me: A Reckoning is available for purchase wherever books are sold.

Hayden Panettiere is opening up about an incident with an “undressed” and “very famous” man.

The actress reflects on an incident on a boat involving an unnamed musician and her friend Stella in her new memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, going into more detail about the incident previously mentioned on Jay Shetty’s podcast On Purpose. Panettiere sets the scene on a luxury yacht, complete with a DJ, dancing, and sunbathing.

“There was always champagne flowing, someone famous or beautiful lounging on the deck, or a card game or deep conversation happening in one of the many lower-level lounges,” she writes. “Good times and Stella were one and the same. Honestly, I would have had to try to have a bad time.”

Panettiere had met Stella at an industry party and the duo became fast friends, filling her “nights and weekends with long dinners, strong cocktails, and gorgeous people.”

Despite her glamorous front, Panettiere thought something was off. “Her career track didn’t match up with how much money she spent, yet she never talked about her family or her past,” she writes. “No matter where we went together, she immediately made a bee-line toward whatever rich and famous man happened to be there. She’d grab me and pull me along with her, then introduce me to the men.”

Hayden Panettiere in West Hollywood in November 2022
Credit: Jon Kopaloff/Getty

One day aboard the yacht, Stella told her that she wanted to introduce her to someone. “‘I’ve been here for days. I thought I’d met everyone.’ Stella laughed. ‘No, he’s new,’ she answered. ‘Just trust me.’ There was that word again. Trust. I pushed any worries I had to the side, though, and followed Stella down a set of stairs.”

Stella and Panettiere then entered a cabin, where “a famous thirtysomething British singer-songwriter was lying in a bed,” Panettiere recalls. “He was shirtless and propped up on a few pillows with his arms positioned behind his head. From the waist down, he was covered by bedsheets, and I could see the outline of his body underneath.”

Panettiere says Stella pulled up the sheets and told the Nashville actress, “I want you to get in bed with him. He has a huge dick.” Panettiere slipped under the covers, not thinking to say no to whom she thought was a close friend.

“My thoughts were a blur, but I’d spent my life trusting that others had my best interests at heart. Being ‘managed’ was routine, to the point where I lost faith in my intuition,” she writes. “I could feel my heart pounding, as I settled in underneath the sheets, I disassociated. My body no longer felt like my own. The shock was so great it didn’t even occur to me to say no.”

Stella then left the musician and actress together, but Panettiere didn’t let things go any further. “Look,” she recalled saying, “I don’t know what she said to you, but this is not going to happen.” Panettiere left the room, ran to her cabin, and made arrangements for her to leave the yacht as soon as possible.

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“I wasn’t scared, but I felt like I’d been kicked in the face,” she writes, upset with Stella’s actions. “She’d confided in me, pampered me, and treated me like her best friend—then turned around and treated me like a call girl. I deserved better than that, by a lot.”

‘This Is Me: A Reckoning’ by Hayden Panettiere
Credit: Grand Central Publishing

Panettiere realized she wanted to spend time with people who were less focused on fame, “who’d  looked past the flashbulbs of the paparazzi and treated me with respect.” She yearned to go back home to Wladimir Klitschko.

As for why she never named the musician, Panettiere told The Hollywood Reporter in May, “It was a bad look for them and [the people I didn’t name] were generally people within my industry. They’re people I could run into again. I didn’t want to put myself in that position.”

She added, “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.”

This Is Me: A Reckoning is available for purchase wherever books are sold.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly