Hayden Panettiere Says Her Mom Superglued Her Baby Tooth Back in Mouth to Save Acting Job

Hayden Panettiere is pulling no punches in her new memoir.

The Heroes star, 36, opens up about her unconventional childhood in This Is Me: A Reckoning, detailing a series of bizarre memories from growing up in the entertainment industry under the management of her estranged mother, Lesley Vogel.

Panettiere made her screen debut in a toy train commercial at just 11 months old before landing roles on soap operas Guiding Light and One Life to Live.

Vogel, a former soap opera star, managed her career from the start and took the job seriously — perhaps too seriously.

When the Bring It On: All or Nothing star began losing her baby teeth, Vogel was not about to let a gap-toothed smile stand between her daughter and a paying role.

According to Panettiere, a dentist set her up with a dental flipper, essentially a retainer with a fake tooth built in, and sent them home with denture adhesive to hold it in place. Vogel was not convinced that was enough.

On a shoot in Chicago, when the Remember the Titans star was just 8 years old, Vogel unapologetically reached for something a little stronger.

“Give me the tooth you lost. And cross your fingers,” the Guiding Light alum recalls her mother telling her on set, as per the excerpt published by The Independent.

What followed left the young actress somewhere between stunned and oddly impressed.

“I dutifully handed Mom the tooth and watched her squeeze a dab of superglue onto it. Then she affixed the tooth to the flipper,” she writes. The pair waited 10 seconds for the glue to set.

“A little voice in my head told me that if the superglue wasn’t dry, I was going to live with this flipper for all eternity,” the 36-year-old recalls. “I closed my mouth and licked my top teeth. Then I opened my mouth and smiled.”

“Lisp be damned. I got the job,” she added.

Later in the memoir, Panettiere writes that the rift between her and Vogel had grown too deep to repair, and she ultimately decided to sever ties and walk away from their working relationship for good.

This Is Me: A Reckoning is available in bookstores now.