Hayden Panettiere Says Neutrogena Fired Her For Discussing Her Postpartum Depression

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On May 12, actor and former Neutrogena spokesmodel Hayden Panettiere appeared on the “Jay Shetty Podcast” to promote her new memoir This is me: A Reckoning, which hits bookstore shelves on May 19.

In the interview (and in her new book) Panettiere talked about the postpartum depression she suffered after the birth of her daughter Kaya in 2014.

“I labored with Kaya for 14 hours and was in surgery for three hours after she was born,” she wrote in an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir, a copy of which was obtained by The Cut.

“My blood wouldn’t clot during my C-section, so doctors had to close the blood vessels in my uterus to prevent me from bleeding out. I had seven transfusions and ran a fever the entire time,” she wrote. “My uterus had become infected, and the antibiotics I’d been given during labor hadn’t been strong enough to lower my temperature. When I woke up in the recovery room, I was exhausted, disoriented, and racked with pain.”

Afterward she turned to alcohol to cope.

She entered addiction treatment multiple times and ended up having to be written off her hit show “Nashville” when her absences became too frequent and extensive for production to accommodate.

Later, Panettiere appeared on “Live! with Kelly and Michael,” where she discussed her struggles and postpartum depression.

After the episode aired, Panettiere says Neutogena — whom she had worked with for 10 years at this point — attempted to fire her for violating her contract’s morality clause.

“This was the last thing I ever thought they would fire me over,” Panettiere told Shetty. “When I got that call that Neutrogena wanted to fire me over that, my representative at the time said, ‘That’s illegal. You can’t do that.’”

Neutrogena then apparently backtracked, but when Panettiere’s contract came to an end a few months later, that was it. No renewal and no outreach of any kind form any of the people she had worked with at the company for the past decade either.

Check out the full interview below.