Hayden Panettiere has been acting since she was a toddler. She got her start in commercials before playing Sarah Roberts on One Life to Live when she was just 8. After leaving the ABC soap, she joined Guiding Light as Lizzie Spaulding. Her breakout role as a teenager was playing Claire Bennet on Heroes.
Her career stalled in 2018 amid a battle with severe postpartum depression and addiction. She finally returned to acting in 2023 when she reprised the role of Kirby in Scream 7. In her new memoir coming out later this month, the actress opens up about her struggles. The book includes a chapter on a shocking incident where she was nearly sex trafficked to a famous actor. Keep reading for all the details.
Hayden Panettiere Nearly Sex Trafficked To Famous Actor
Hayden Panettiere was enjoying the success of Heroes in 2007. She began dating her co-star, Milo Ventimiglia, and was photographed hanging out with her famous friends. But in her new book, the actress claims that one of her friends broke her trust in the worst way.
The unnamed woman allegedly tried to get Hayden Panettiere to perform sexual acts on a much older and very famous actor. Jay Shetty brought up the book revelation during an interview with the actress on his On Purpose podcast. “You write about a moment in your career where a friend of yours takes you onto a boat. You’re led to a room which has an older man in it and then basically told to perform sexual acts,” he said.
“It was led by somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector and somebody who had my back,” Hayden Panettiere told him. The actress described the terrifying incident that happened when she was 18 and on a boat.
“She physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous,” she said about the situation, adding that it seemed like just another day to the actor. Hayden Panettiere was able to get out of the room and hide elsewhere on the boat until it returned to land.
RHOBH Alum Denies Involvement
Hayden Panettiere didn’t name the friend or the famous actor. However, social media sleuths immediately got on the case to try to determine the culprits. With paparazzi photos of the actress partying on yachts around 2007 and her circle of friends, the internet investigators came to the unverified opinion that the woman in question was a former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star.
Diana Jenkins was on the Bravo reality show for just one season. An old rumor claimed that she was a famous Hollywood madam. She filed several lawsuits in 2022 after the rumor resurfaced online.
Her team released a terse statement amid Internet claims that Diana Jenkins was the woman involved in allegedly sex trafficking Hayden Panettiere. “Diana has had to deal with false online rumors before, and sadly this is just another example of that. So let me be 100 percent clear about this: It most certainly is not Diana, and anyone who claims it is her will be sued,” the RHOBH alum’s rep said in a statement to TMZ.
Hayden Panettiere hasn’t publicly addressed the speculation about Diana Jenkins. Her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, hits bookstores on May 19, 2026.
Jennifer Havener grew up in a small town in Upstate New York. She earned her B.A in Writing & Literature from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. She always knew watching reality TV shows and soap operas, particularly ‘Days of Our Lives’, would come in handy someday. When she’s not writing, she’s playing with her dogs, Lola and Ruger
