Hayden Panettiere revealed to People that she struggled with an alcohol and opioid addiction that began when she was first offered “happy pills” before walking red carets at the age of 15.
She told the outlet, “They were to make me peppy during interviews. I had no idea that this was not an appropriate thing, or what door that would open for me when it came to my addiction.”
The 32-year-old said that although she managed to quit drinking while she was pregnant, she turned to alcohol to help her through her postpartum depression after 7-year-old Kaya was born.
The Heroes alum explained, “I never had the feeling that I wanted to harm my child, but I didn't want to spend any time with her, There was just this gray color in my life.”
In 2018, the year Nashville came to an end, the star did “the hardest thing I ever had to do,” and sent Kaya to live with her father, Wladimir Klitschko, in Ukraine.
Sometime after that she ended up in the hospital with jaudice and was warned that her liver could give out. The actress went to rehab for eight months and credits her stay for giving her the tools to “get over the hump” of her addiction.