Hayden Panettiere reflected on the emotional toll of giving up custody of her daughter Kaya while battling addiction and postpartum depression.
The 36-year-old “Nashville” alum admitted that she “felt guilty” about her “total inability” to raise her then-11-year-old daughter.
“The worst thing someone has ever said to me is that it was a personal choice that I made,” Panettiere said Tuesday during a panel discussion for her new memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” in West Hollywood, California.
“Who would feel this way? How could you say that to me? This beautiful child is healthy and there is nothing to celebrate,” she continued. “And I just can’t do it. I felt so guilty and felt like I couldn’t do it.”
Panettiere, who shares Kaya with ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko, has previously spoken candidly about her battle with postpartum depression after giving birth in 2014 and her battle with addiction in the years that followed.
At one point during the panel discussion, the actress recalled how she was devastated years ago when she saw her face on the cover of a magazine while walking through an airport.
She recounted the moment she was walking to the gate of her home when she saw the headline “Why Hayden Panettiere Gave Her Daughter Away.”
“Maybe you should have taken a knife and stabbed me in the heart. If you know me, you know that I would do anything for my daughter,” Panettiere said. “And sometimes that doesn’t mean what you want as a mother or what makes you feel good as a parent, but what’s best for your children.”
The Golden Globe nominee also opened up about the painful moment she signed the custody papers, explaining that her father was present at the time.
“I have to be a little careful. I want to continue to have a beautiful relationship with my daughter,” she said. “But let’s just say that sometimes that’s not an option.”
Panettiere said she was sitting in a restaurant when several witnesses unexpectedly arrived and watched her sign the documents.
“I was sitting there with people and gritting my teeth as best I could to not start sobbing,” she recalled. “And I heard them laughing and giggling and I thought, ‘I can’t believe I get to watch someone do what is obviously one of the most painful things in the world.'”
The “Heroes” alum said he locked himself in the restaurant’s bathroom soon afterward to process the “reality of the situation.”
Panettiere and Klitschko began dating in 2009 and had an on-again, off-again romance before getting engaged in 2013.
The following year, the “Scream 4” star announced that she was expecting her first child with a businessman.
The actress relinquished full custody of Kaya to Klitschko after their split in 2018.
As of May 2026, she maintains a good co-parenting relationship with Klitschko and frequently visits their daughter in Ukraine.
