Hayden Panettiere Did Not ‘Just Give Up’ her Daughter

Ahead of her new memoir, Hayden Panettiere is discussing giving up custody of her daughter. “There’s been a common misconception that I just gave up my child, when that couldn’t be farther from the truth,” she told Jay Shetty on his podcast, On Purpose With Jay Shetty. “I hope it’s a little clearer.” While battling postpartum depression and addiction, Panettiere gave full custody of daughter Kaya to her father, Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko. But Paniettiere has always been a presence in Kaya’s life. “I have an incredible relationship with her,” she said. “I travel [to see her] as much as I can. We have a really intense, incredible bond, and I’m very grateful for that.”

As she writes in her memoir, Panettiere’s addiction and mental health issues were mirrored by her character on Nashville, muddying her recovery process. Add to that paparazzi scrutiny, and an already uphill battle was made incredibly tough. “I was struggling with mental health, anxiety, postpartum and having to act my way through it and feeling like I completely lost myself,” she told Shetty. “The misconception is that I have been forced into treatment when, in fact, I have been the one who has sought it out, who was saying, ‘I desperately need help. I know this is going to look terrible, but I cannot live like this anymore.’”

After Panettiere and Klitschko separated, Kaya began splitting her time between the U.S. and Ukraine. When she sought treatment, it made the most sense for Kaya to stay with her father permanently. “She had family, she had friends, she had extracurricular activities,” Panettiere said. “She had a beautiful life. She understood the languages and was starting to speak them…So by the time I finally got healthy, I felt it would have been unfair of me and selfish of me to try to pull her away from this life that she had created.”

Panettiere says her daughter, now 11, is thriving and seeing her mom regularly. “She’s an incredible little girl. So happy. [She] speaks five languages and rides horses and knows that she has two parents that love her. I know in my heart that she feels supported,” she said. “There’s been a common misconception that I just gave up my child, when that couldn’t be farther from the truth.”