Hayden Panettiere is opening up about one of the most difficult periods of her life.
In a raw conversation with Jay Shetty on Monday, May 11, the actress revealed the main reason she decided to hand over complete custody of her daughter, Kaya, to her ex-fiancé, Wladimir Klitschko, when she was suffering from postpartum and mental health.
“The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be OK with it is heartbreaking.”
Hayden Panettiere also mentioned in the On Purpose podcast the misconception that she was “forced into treatment,” saying:
“In fact, I have been the one who sought it out, who was saying, ‘I desperately need help. I don’t, you know, I know this is going to look terrible, but I cannot live like this anymore.'”
When asked to talk more about giving up her custody of her child, Hayden Panettiere made it clear that Wladimir, who was her partner from 2009 until 2018, said that “it would be best” to have Kaya stay with him in Europe while the actress was in recovery mode.
“The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be okay with it is heartbreaking. It couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Hayden Panettiere confesses to not taking it well to being away from Kaya: “I would’ve burned the world down for my child”
The Bring It On lead revealed that letting her then-two-year-old daughter go, she didn’t have the best response to how things unfolded.
“When that first happened, I didn’t have a good reaction to it. I went, like, mother lion. I would’ve burned the world down for my child. So that was incredibly difficult, not, you know, my child wasn’t going to be with me.”
In the end, Hayden Panettiere confessed that the decision to give up her custody of her child was for the best, as Kaya built an “incredible life” of her own amid traveling back and forth between the US and Europe.
“She had spent a lot of time over there. She had family, she had friends, she had extracurricular activities, she already had a beautiful life, and she understood the languages and was starting to speak them. So by the time I finally got healthy, I felt like it would’ve been unfair for me and selfish of me to try to pull her out, away from this life that she had created.”
Throughout her struggles, the Amanda Knox star shared that those around her, including her ex-fiancé, supported her despite not understanding everything.
“Even though Vlad didn’t understand it, the people around me didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t know what was going on, they were supportive. I went to go get help. They didn’t know what was going on.”
Hayden Panettiere added:
“And so it became this horrible cycle for years of battling depression and anxiety and alcoholism and substance abuse, and me just trying to find my way back, out of this darkness. I would’ve done anything and tried anything.”
Edited by Gladys Altamarino