Hayden Panettiere comes out as bisexual, details ‘scary’ experience dating women
Hayden Panettiere is opening up about her sexuality for the primary time.
The actress got here out as bisexual in her “This Is Me: A Reckoning” memoirout May 19, and discussed it in an interview with Us Weekly.
“Now… that I’ve chosen to share it with the world, I’m comfortable to confidently say that yes, I am bisexual,” the “Heroes” alum, 36, informed the outlet on Wednesday. “I said it! This is the first time I got to say it out loud.”
While Panettiere by no means felt it was “the right time” to share her sexuality publicly, she quipped it is “better late than ever.”
The “Nashville” alum pointed out that when she was younger, she was “being forced to be perfect at all times” and “not encouraged to just be [her]self.”
She added, “Then came the period where it felt like people coming out, especially women, saying that they were bisexual or liked girls, it was a fad. I was afraid that if I was honest, it was going to be like me jumping on the bandwagon. It was a very difficult topic to articulate properly.”
Panettiere clarified that she has “dated women” through the years.
“It was scary, though, because there were paparazzi always waiting for me outside to follow me everywhere,” she recalled, noting that she was “much more into women even as a child than… men.”
The Golden Globe nominee continued, “I have explored it, but because I hadn’t shared this with anybody, I didn’t really have the courage to throw myself fully emotionally into it. Because then if I did fall in love, that wasn’t something that I wanted to ever have to hide.”
Panettiere made headlines in 2009 when she spoke about “occasions when you kiss your best friend growing up” whereas discussing a “Heroes” storyline by which her character, Claire Bennet, attached together with her roommate.
She known as the scene “very exciting,” according to Pridesaying, “When you are young, you experiment and you have fun.”
Panettiere split from her co-star Milo Ventimiglia that very same yr, moving on with Wladimir Klitschkowith whom she shares daughter Kaya.
After their on-again, off-again relationshipPanettiere had a risky, allegedly abusive romance with Brian Hickerson from 2018 to 2022.
She known as the experience “traumatic” and “brutal” on Wednesday, saying, “Getting an abusive particular person out of your life is like making an attempt to tear a weed out that’s so entangled into your life, each time you pull it out one other weed pops again up and you are like, ‘I assumed I killed this.’
“They always manage to find a way to slither back in, even if you’re an incredibly strong-willed person,” Panettiere continued. “YO struggled to fully put a kibosh to it for some time.
Elsewhere within the interview, the previous cleaning soap star discussed her addiction strugglesher grief over late brother Jansen Panettiere’s death and extra.
If you or somebody you recognize is affected by any of the problems raised on this story, name the Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-330-0226.