Hayden Panettiere is one of the rare celebrities who've been able to transition smoothly from
child acting to the life of an adult Hollywood star.
Here's the story of her stunning transformation over the decades.
Panettiere has been acting for nearly her entire life.
She kicked things off for herself in the entertainment industry with a TV commercial at the age of
11 months, then as a toddler landed the role of Sarah Roberts on the popular daytime soap
opera One Life To Live, which she appeared on from 1994 to 1997.
Even from a young age, her talent was clearly apparent, as she soon went on to star in many
other projects while still a child, including a regular part on another soap opera, Guiding
Light.
In January 2017, Panettiere reflected on her time as a child actress during an interview
on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
She recounted how on Guiding Light she was thrown down a well, she got kidnapped, she
shot her mom's boyfriend, and she got leukemia not once, but twice.
She also explained how she was so carefree back in those days.
“I'm saying you could be in your birthday suit and you could be the most confident person
in the room at 7 years old.
Yeah, right?"
Panettiere was obviously no stranger to the actor's life when she landed a major film
role at the age of 11.
In the 2000 movie Remember the Titans, she played the character of Sheryl Yoast, the
sassy, smart, and kind daughter of a football coach.
Titans follows the integration of a high school football team in Alexandria, Virginia.
It's based on a true story and tackles difficult issues, such as race, discrimination, and
violence.
Panettiere was lucky enough to star alongside such co-stars as Denzel Washington, Ryan Gosling,
and Will Patton.
The film was a big hit, as it went on to gross $115 million at the domestic box office.
It's pretty impressive that Panettiere was able to take on such an intense role at such
a young age.
Some fans even think of her character as the hero of the movie thanks to her ability to
bring people together.
Clearly, her talent has been there from the start.
After Panettiere finished her work on Remember the Titans and Joe Somebody, which came out
the following year, she soon landed a role on the popular legal dramedy Ally McBeal.
The show followed the eccentric and quirky lives of a group of lawyers, with Calista
Flockhart in the title role.
Even though Panettiere was still a kid when her episodes aired, she made a big impact.
Her character was named Maddie Harrington, and she joined the main cast in the fifth
and final season.
Maddie was introduced as Ally's long-lost daughter.
She showed up on her door one day, and it turned out that she was the result of a mix-up
at the egg bank where Ally had frozen her eggs a decade earlier.
"I'm your daughter.
… Did you hear me?"
"I'm just waiting for the little fantasy beat to be over."
Ultimately, Panettiere appeared in 12 episodes, and the experience likely helped her gain
a deeper level of understanding of the TV industry.
While she would go on to star in more movies, her most iconic future roles would be on the
small screen, and Ally McBeal may just have had something to do with that.
Throughout the 2000s, Panettiere landed roles in several movies.
In 2004's Raising Helen, she played a teenager who ended up in the care of her Aunt Helen,
as played by Kate Hudson, after her parents died.
That role was a key step towards Panettiere becoming America's sweetheart.
Then in 2005, she played a figure skater in Ice Princess.
In an interview with LiveAbout.com, she explained how that film was super exciting for her:
"I had just come off Racing Stripes and​ ice skating sounded like a blast to me.
It sounded like something new and exciting and fun.
I'm very much an athlete.
I'm a big jock and I love sports, and so, to be able to put another sport underneath
my belt, and to learn something new, was amazing."
Other roles that decade included 2006's cheerleading sequel Bring It On: All or Nothing and the
title character in the 2009 comedy I Love You, Beth Cooper.
But it was another role that would catapult her to stardom.
In 2006, Panettiere landed what would become one of the most iconic roles of her career
on NBC's superhero TV show Heroes.
She played Claire Bennet, a high school cheerleader who discovers she has supernatural powers.
She was also the namesake of the show's early tagline, "Save the cheerleader, save the world."
In a 2011 interview with Parade, the actress described how the show quite literally changed
her life:
"Heroes wasn't just a show, it was a massive, massive production that was ten months out
of the year and definitely monopolized my life.
At that period of time, it was probably a godsend for me.
It kept me busy, kept me out of trouble.
It was steady.
It was a great place for me to be at that point in my life."
Panettiere left Heroes behind when the show ended in 2010, but it's clear that it played
a significant part in her career and set her up for future stardom.
And who knows, maybe one day she'll even play Claire again!
"The future isn't written in stone."
While Panettiere's professional life was in an upward swing, her personal life was also
going through a big change.
In 2009, she met former professional boxer Wladimir Klitschko at a friends' book launch
party.
Apparently, the two of them really took a liking to each other right off the bat.
In a 2013 interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Panettiere mentioned that she and Klitschko
first met when she was only 19 and her first thought was how tall Klitschko was.
As she put it,
"I know that I'm small, but he's large.
That's how we met.
I said, 'You're huge.'
He said, 'You're tiny.'
And that was it!"
Basically, it was love at first sight.
And while Panettiere and Klitschko's relationship would eventually become a little complicated,
when they first got together, their chemistry was undeniable.
One of the biggest career-defining moments in Panettiere's life happened when she landed
a role on the TV show Nashville.
The drama centered around the title town and all the ups and downs of country music stardom.
Panettiere played Juliette Barnes, a young, up-and-coming songstress with a bit of a villainous
streak.
The series proved to be huge for Panettiere, but when she first auditioned, she was a little
worried she might not have nailed it.
As she told New York Magazine in 2013,
"They obviously had these doubts about me, and you feel kind of like, 'Are they gonna
be happy that they chose me?'"
But they clearly did love her, as Panettiere's role became more and more central to the story.
She told New York Magazine,
"The way the show was written originally, I was not as big of a character as it became."
Panettiere shined over the course of Nashville's six-season run and that was clear right from
the start, despite her audition anxiety.
In 2013, Panettiere and Wladimir Klitschko took their relationship to the next level
when they got engaged.
The actress was quite low-key about the development, as she didn't post anything to social media
immediately after it happened.
But she did confirm the happy news during an interview on Live with Kelly and Michael.
She was wearing a live boa constrictor like a necklace at the time, naturally enough.
"I don't know if I should kiss you.
I don't want to upset your friend, the snake."
"Oh, he's chillin'.
He's chillin' back there."
While Panettiere didn't reveal too much publicly about her engagement, she did open up a bit
about the wedding planning process.
When she stopped by The Ellen DeGeneres Show, she explained that her fiancé was a bit befuddled
by the traditions of American weddings.
As she revealed,
"He's very confused about our traditions.
He just doesn't know that the woman's side of the family is supposed to pay for the wedding.
We don't need him to know that."
In 2014, life really picked up for Panettiere and Klitschko, as they were about to be joined
by a new family member.
Us Weekly broke the news that the actress was expecting, and it sounds like she had
been happily looking forward to this chapter in her life for a long time.
In a 2013 interview with Glamour, she revealed that there was nothing she wanted more than
to be a mom.
As she put it,
"I've lived a very big life, and I don't feel my age, and I feel like I was born to be a
mother [...] Motherhood is the most beautiful, exciting thing, and there's nothing that I
feel like I can't accomplish while having children in my life.
I would sacrifice having more years of being wherever I want whenever I want for years
with my kids."
Obviously, Panettiere got exactly what she wanted, and she was a total boss as she filmed
episodes of Nashville while pregnant.
Basically, she was doing it all, and nobody could stop her.
Panettiere and Klitschko's daughter, Kaya, arrived in December 2014, but alas, the new
parents weren't destined to stay together forever, as the two split up in 2018.
An insider source told E! News that the pair had broken up but that they remained committed
to their family.
According to the source,
"At this point, Hayden is single and she and Wladimir are co-parents to Kaya.
Kaya is primarily with her dad and his family in Europe and Florida.
They also spend time together as a family with Hayden.
Hayden and Wladimir are on great terms and friendly.
They are a big part of each other's lives and will continue to be.
Hayden is back in Los Angeles and figuring out what's next."
Though it's sad that Panettiere and Klitschko couldn't make it work, it's great to see that
they chose to remain committed to their daughter.
After Panettiere gave birth to her daughter, she got real about her struggles as a first-time
mom.
When she opened up publicly about her postpartum depression, it really got people talking,
and it helped to fight the stigma surrounding the condition.
She spoke with E! News in 2016 about her decision to check herself into a treatment center for
her postpartum.
As she put it,
"I do feel and hope it's made other people's lives better and more of an understanding
because postpartum depression was not something that I ever understood.
You could never understand it unless you have a personal involvement with it.
I didn't realize how much of a stigma it had about it."
Panettiere honesty really made a difference, as it showed how truly brave she is when it
comes to helping other women.
No matter how long she battled postpartum, she did what she had to do to be the best
mother for her daughter, and that's what's important.
"I think I'm all the stronger for it.
And I think I'm a better mom because of it, because you never take that connection for
granted."
After Panettiere and Klitschko split up, she eventually sparked up something with a new
beau.
But unfortunately, when she started dating Brian Hickerson, there was drama right from
the get-go.
As one source told Us Weekly in 2018, their relationship wasn't a healthy situation.
That proved to be a warning of what was to come.
In May 2019, Hickerson was arrested for domestic violence, though eventually the charges were
dropped.
The couple appeared to split up for a while before getting back together in November 2019.
However, a source told People Magazine that Panettiere's family wasn't thrilled about
her decision to get back together.
According to the source,
"They are not fans of Brian.
It's clear that he has issues of his own, not to mention the anger issues, which is
obviously a big one."
And that wasn't the end of this relationshiop's troubles.
In February 2020, TMZ reported that Hickerson was arrested for domestic violence again after
allegedly punching Panettiere in the head.
While Panettiere's clearly gone through more than her fair share of hard times, she remains
an actress with a world of possibilities ahead of her.
We wish her all the best in her journey and hope that she comes out the other side brighter
and bolder than ever.
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