Hayden Panettiere opens up about her drug relapse

Hayden Panettiere has spoken openly about her history with addiction, revealing that she had a relapse after going to rehab for drug and alcohol use.

The actress, known for roles in Heroes and Nashville, spoke last year and said that she was given drugs by a member of her team when she was just 15.

Now speaking to Women’s Health in a new interview, the 33-year-old said that in the years that followed alcohol and opioids became “something she almost couldn't live without”.

The actress also experienced postpartum depression after welcoming her daughter Kaya with boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014.

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Panettiere said that while she should have taken antidepressants, “they don't mix well with alcohol, and I wasn't ready to stop drinking”.

"I was in a lot of pain,” she said, referring to a neck injury she was dealing with at the time. “My tolerance got so high so fast that it became a problem.”

Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images

Discussing her experience of entering rehab in 2015, Panettiere said that things became overwhelming for her when storylines in Nashville got a little too close to real life.

"They wrote my character as having postpartum depression… that she abandoned her child and went to a different country.

"And it was very difficult to go on set and to act out these feelings about these things that I was truly going through in my real life."

"I struggled with sleep deprivation," she said. "Sleep is massive. It affects your motor skills, your ability to think and your overall health...my body was like, 'enough'."

Recalling the time she relapsed at age 30, she added: “My face was swollen. I had jaundice. My eyes were yellow. I had to go to a liver specialist.

"I was holding on to weight that wasn’t normally there. My hair was thin and coming out in clumps."

Panettiere then got clean in 2021 and enrolled in a 12-step programme. She recently returned to acting roles with a role in Scream VI earlier this year.

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