Hayden Panettiere Details the Moment She Was Put in Bed With a ‘Very Famous,’ ‘Undressed Man’ at 18

Hayden Panettiere is opening up about a harrowing experience she had when she was just 18.

The Scream 6 actress, 36, appeared on the Tuesday, May 11 episode of the Jay Shetty podcast, where she discussed a story she shared in her new book, This Is Me: A Reckoning, regarding a trusted friend asking her to perform sexual acts on a man she describes as very famous on a boat.

“The fact that I was 18, even though I’d lived such a huge life and I thought I was oh so mature at 18 … scientifically, our frontal lobes don’t develop until we’re what, 25, 26?” she said. “So even though I felt like I could make healthy decisions, safe decisions, I wasn’t capable of being fully aware of what was going on around me.”

“It wasn’t until I found myself in predicaments that I realized… My perspective completely shifted and I realized that I was in danger, but by the time I realized I was in danger, I was quite literally out to sea,” she continued.

Panettiere explained that she had been having a great time on the boat up until the point her friend physically put her in the uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situation.

“I was led by somebody I had grown to trust and see as a protector and somebody who had my back,” she said. “To be walked down the stairs and it was like a surprise. It was presented as though it was a surprise. It was this very small room and she physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous.”

The Heroes star described the man as lying in the bed, relaxed with his hands above his head, “like this was just, you know, an average day for him. This was something that happens all the time.”

Panettiere did not name the man who was nude in the bed, nor the person who led her below deck to him. However, she says once the woman left the room, she ran away from the situation as best she could.

“My hair stood on end and I became ferocious and I was like, ‘This is not happening.’ But I had nowhere to hide,” she told poscast host Jay Shetty. “I bolted and I hid wherever I could think of to hide on the boat. There’s no jumping off and swimming away and there was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation. This was nothing new to them.”