Ready to tell all. Hayden Panettiere spoke about her ups and downs like never before during an eye-opening appearance on Red Table Talk.
The 33-year-old Heroes alum sat down with Jada Pinkett Smith, Adrienne Banfield-Norris and guest host Kelly Osbourne during the Wednesday, September 28, episode of the Facebook Watch series to discuss everything from her early Hollywood career to her struggles with alcohol addiction and postpartum depression.
“Some people thought it was a personal choice,” Panettiere said. “That being depressed at all is a personal choice and that I could just snap my fingers and choose one day, ‘I’m not going to be depressed anymore. I’m going to be happy.’ I felt like it was not something that people understood or talked about. And I didn’t know to ask for help.”
The Remember the Titans actress welcomed daughter Kaya with Wladimir Klitschko in December 2014. The now-exes began dating after meeting at a 2009 party and called it quits for the first time in 2011. Two years later, Panettiere confirmed she and the boxer, now 46, had gotten back together. They got engaged in October 2013 but split for good five years later.
“I respect him for being such a driven human being and he’s very positive,” the I Love You, Beth Cooper star said of her former fiancé on Wednesday when asked whether he could tell she was struggling after Kaya was born. “Athletes, they’re very diligent. That mentality is just pretty incredible. … He really thought that I was doing it to myself I think and just that I could choose to snap out of it.”
In January 2019, Panettiere exclusively told Us Weekly that she and Klitschko were on good terms when it came to coparenting. “We’re still respectful of each other, and we still have that friendship with each other,” she explained. “It’s not a situation that you find yourself in all that often, so it’s a new one. But I think we’ve done a really good job.”
The update came not long after the Ice Princess actress made the decision for Kaya to live with Klitschko in Ukraine while she worked on her sobriety. On Wednesday, Panettiere revealed that the circumstances regarding her daughter’s custody arrangement were still “very upsetting.”
“The idea that I am a person that would just easily throw out my child, give away my child [is a big misconception],” she told the Red Table Talk hosts. “I felt horribly guilty. But at the same time, I was trying to tell myself that if I’m not OK, if I’m not good, then I can not be the best mom to [Kaya]. … Signing those papers to give him full custody was, like, the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever, ever had to do in my life.”
Panettiere asserted that her ex “is a fantastic father” to their little girl, but she also thinks there are certain things kids need their moms for. “As she gets older, it’s going [to be hard],” the Malcolm in the Middle alum added. “It was tough and it took me a long time to be able to talk about it. … I wish I had gotten myself more help than I did.”
Scroll down for more of the biggest revelations from Panettiere’s Red Table Talk episode:
