Hayden Panettiere has claimed a “well-respected” and “Oscar-winning” actor and director exposed himself to her when she was 19.
The Heroes and Nashville star recently published This Is Me: A Reckoning, in which she recalled a time where she attended a party where she described herself as exchanging small talk with a group of men. Becoming uncomfortable, she got her coat to leave, before she alleges that a “well-respected” and “Oscar-winning actor and director” pointed to his trousers, claiming that there was gum stuck on them.
“I looked down and recoiled,” Panettiere claimed (via People). “This well-respected, award-winning actor’s testicles were hanging out from his unzipped fly.” Describing her feelings over the alleged incident, she wrote: “It hadn’t hurt me, and I was sure it was a drunken joke, but I’d never seen a grown man do something like that. I was shocked.”
The actress wrote that she decided not to tell anyone about the incident at the time, as she felt “the moment had passed”. The identity of the actor was not revealed, and no legal claims have been filed.
Hayden Panettiere rose to fame thanks to her role as Claire Bennett on the hit show Heroes, which ran from 2006-10, with the revival Heroes Reborn airing from 2015-16. She has also been part of the Scream movie franchise, as well as playing Juliette Barnes in the music drama Nashville from 2012-18.
Recently, the star came out as bisexual, saying that her memoir was the first time she felt comfortable sharing her identity with the world. “It was either I was too young, and I was being forced to be perfect at all times. I was not encouraged to just be myself,” she told Us Weekly. “It’s sad I had to wait until I was 36 years old to share that part of me, but better late than never, right?”
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