Hayden Panettiere claims her mother and former manager, Lesley Vogel, had a savage three-word response when the actress ended their business relationship.
Panettiere, now 36, told podcaster Jay Shetty during a candid interview Monday that she was 19 when she finally worked up the “courage” to “split” from her “boss,” Vogel, who had managed her career since she was a child star.
“She came into my trailer during lunch when we were filming ‘Heroes,’ and I said to her, ‘I don’t want us to work together anymore; I just want you to be my mom,’” Panettiere recalled telling Vogel, who allegedly replied, “You owe me.”
The actress admittedly “wasn’t expecting” that reaction.
“And that’s all she said, and she walked out,” Panettiere shared. “And part of me was like, ‘Oh, I’m relieved that it was short, like, rip the Band-Aid off.’ But then it was like this dark looming cloud over my head going, ‘What does she mean by I owe her? What form of payment is she expecting?’”
According to Panettiere, she later “found out” that her mom just wanted “money.”
“Disappointed,” the “Remember the Titans” star claimed Vogel, now 70, “didn’t pursue” a mother-daughter relationship with her after that.
“Once the business aspect was removed, I was hoping that there [would] be no reason for her to be anything other than my than my mom,” Panettiere explained. “And the fact that it seemed like she didn’t want to — didn’t care to — have a relationship with me was a tough pill to swallow.”
Asked about the status of their relationship today, the actress lamented that they are “sadly” estranged. (Panettiere and her father, Skip Panettiere, “have a great relationship.”)
Though Hayden is “incredibly grateful” for her mom’s guidance early in her career, she claimed Vogel — who allegedly “stopped acting and decided to focus her entire life on creating a career” for her daughter — had very high expectations of her.
“I’ve desperately [sought] her approval for my entire life. You know, she was the person after every take that I looked to. I wouldn’t look to the director or the producers or anybody else. The only person that existed and the only person whose opinion mattered to me was hers,” Hayden said.
She added, “I had to make sure that she was happy with it and I wasn’t in trouble, because if I didn’t do it right, I was in trouble. Yeah. It was not a good reaction.”
Hayden also recalled the “very strange” and “uncomfortable” “role reversal” of her — a child and then teenager — contributing financially to the family unit.
“On the one hand, I was still a kid, and I was listening to my parents and had to do everything that they told me I could and could not do,” she explained. “But at the same time, I was working hard, making money, and this money was going towards things that I wasn’t privy to.”
Hayden became emotional when discussing losing her “other half,” her younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, who died in February 2023 at age 28.
She told Jetty she used to feel “very guilty” that her career affected how much time she and her mom could spend with Skip and Jansen.
“I remember [Vogel] actually turning to me one night and saying, ‘You’re the reason why I’m missing my son growing up.’ And that was a punch in the gut,” Hayden claimed.
“But as grateful as I was, I wanted to say to her, ‘But I didn’t ask you to take me on auditions. I wasn’t even old enough to perceive [or] understand anything but good, bad, hot, cold, diaper change, food, you know? That kind of stuff. … I loved what I did, and I had great experiences, but at the same time, I was like, ‘I didn’t beg you to give me your life, to sacrifice all of this so that I could have this career.’”
“We each are entitled to choose our path in life,” she told the outlet. “After 20 years of trauma, chaos, addictions [and] accusations, I felt I had no other option but to choose no contact.”
She added, “There will forever be a lingering hope that she will find her own path to inner peace.”
Hayden’s memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” will be released May 19.
