Hayden Panettiere claims 'well respected' star exposed himself at her during party
Hayden Panettiere has accused an "Oscar-winning actor and director flashed his "testicles" at her as she was leaving a party at a private apartment.
Hayden Panettiere has revealed an "Oscar-winning actor and director" exposed himself to her at a party.
The 36-year-old star has recalled feeling "shocked" and confused during the incident at a private apartment where she and a friend attended the party which had left her feeling increasingly uncomfortable after making small talk with a group of men.
Writing in her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, she explained that she decided it was time to leave, but as she was putting on her coat, an unnamed star approached her and pointed to what he had claimed was gum stuck to his trousers.
She wrote: "I looked down and recoiled.
“This well-respected, award-winning actor’s testicles were hanging out from his unzipped fly.”
Hayden incident she wasn't physically harmed in the moment, but she was rattled by the exchange.
She continued: "The gum on the pants, however, was a head-scratcher.
“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 Nashville star, who is also known for roles in Heroes and the Scream franchise, didn't tell her friend about what incident.
She believed "the moment had passed", and put the exchange down to the idea that "some older men had just grown up with no manners".
Elsewhere in the book, Hayden has recalled a terrifying experience of being put into bed with a "very famous man", who was "undressed", when she was on a boat at only 18 years of age.
Appearing on Jay Shetty's On Purpose podcast, she recalled: “The fact that I was 18, even though I’d lived such a huge life and I thought I was oh so mature at 18 … scientifically, your frontal lobes don’t develop until we’re what, 25, 26?
“So even though I felt like I could make healthy decisions, safe decisions, I wasn’t capable of being fully aware of what was going on around me.”
Hayden claims that the individual who led her into the shocking situation was a friend who she trusted and considered as a "protector" before they "physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous".
She recalled how she was taken downstairs into a small room before being put in bed with the unidentified man, who she claims behaved "like this was just an average day for him".
She explained how she became "ferocious" at that moment.
Hayden said: "That lion in me, that fire in me... my hair stood on end...
"I was like, 'This is not happening', before running out of the room and trying to hide.
"There was no jumping off and swimming away. And there was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation. I realised that this was nothing new to them."
Meanwhile, Hayden recently explained her decision not to name certain people in her memoir, particularly those involved in such incidents.
She told The Hollywood Reporter: "Because it was a bad look for them and [the people I didn’t name] were generally people within my industry.
"They’re people I could run into again. I didn’t want to put myself in that position.
"Things happened a long time ago, but it was to protect me and my company from being sued by some very p***** off famous people."
