Hayden Panettiere is getting very honest about her secret struggle with addiction.
In a new interview with People, the 32-year-old actress opened up about her opioid and alcohol addiction. She revealed that in the past year, she has undergone both inpatient treatment and trauma therapy:
“I was on top of the world and I ruined it.”
She noted that she also suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter Kaya, now 7 years old. She said:
“I’d think I hit rock bottom, but then there’s that trap door that opens.”
Hayden spoke honestly about seeking help:
“I put a lot of work into myself and I had to be willing to be incredibly honest.
This hasn’t been easy and there were a lot of ups and downs, but I don’t regret even the ugliest things that ave happened to me. I feel incredibly accomplished. And I feel like I have a second chance.”
She said she was only 15 when someone from her team began to give her “happy pills” so she would be “peppy during interviews” on the red carpet:
“I had no idea that this was not an appropriate thing, or what door that would open for me when it came to my addiction.
My saving grace is that I couldn’t be messy while on set and working. But things kept getting out of control [off set]. And as I got older, the drugs and alcohol became something I almost couldn’t live without.”
She went on to say that despite seeking help then for her depression, she still struggled:
“I never had the feeling that I wanted to harm my child, but I didn’t want to spend any time with her. There was just this gray color in my life.”
Of her lowest point, she said this about her relationship with herself and with her now-ex and the father of her child, Wladimir Klitschko:
“He didn’t want to be around me. I didn’t want to be around me. But with the opates and alcohol I was doing anything to make me feel happy for a moment. Then I’d feel worse than I did before. I was in a cycle of self-destruction.
I would have the shakes when I woke up and could only function with sipping alcohol.”
She also got candid about he decision in 2018 to send Kaya to Ukraine to live with her father:
“It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. But I wanted to be a good mom to her – and sometimes that means letting them go.”
Hayden said she was hospitalized for jaundice, and doctors told her that her “liver was going to give out.” Later on, she spent eight months in rehab, and this gave her the tools that she needed to “get over the hump” of her addiction:
“It’s an everyday choice, and I’m checking in with myself all the time.
But I’m just so grateful to be part of this world again, and I will never take it for granted again.”
