In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, the Nashville star opened up about her upcoming memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, admitting that while she is excited for people to read it, she is also “terrified.” “This was the first project where there was nobody there to direct me or give me real guidance,” Hayden explained. “I just had to have a lot of trust in myself.” And honestly, after hearing what the book covers, it is easy to understand why this project feels so emotional for her.
The memoir dives into nearly every chapter of Hayden’s life, from growing up in Hollywood and dealing with identity issues as a child actor to her struggles with postpartum depression, addiction and abusive relationships. She also opens up about signing over custody of her daughter Kaya to ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko in 2018, something she has rarely discussed publicly in this much depth.
But according to Hayden, the hardest part of writing the book was revisiting the death of her younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, who died in 2023 at just 28 years old.
“I just finished the audiobook of it, and I couldn’t get through the end,” she revealed. “I was completely choked up.”
Hayden said reading the words out loud made the grief feel even more real, especially the parts directly addressed to Jansen.
The actress also reflected on how acting emotionally intense scenes for years began affecting her real life. She explained that as she got older, especially during Nashville, she had to tap into “darker and darker things” mentally in order to cry for scenes, which eventually started bleeding into her personal emotional state.
One of the most interesting things Hayden touches on is how people have built assumptions about who she is since she was a teenager. She says this memoir is her chance to finally correct the narrative.
“What really happened is generally more entertaining than anything anyone could come up with,” she said.
And honestly, that line alone tells you exactly what kind of memoir this is going to be.
Not a polished celebrity memoir trying to protect an image. More like somebody finally deciding to stop filtering their life story for public comfort.
Hayden says her biggest hope is that readers who are struggling with mental health, addiction or grief feel less alone after reading it.
This Is Me: A Reckoning releases May 19.