Hayden Panettiere’s mum lashes ‘haters’ as former child stars call for protection

Hayden Panettiere’s mother says she was “just numb” after hearing news of her daughter’s death, as she addressed the fractured relationship between the pair.

Speaking publicly for the first time since Panettiere’s death last week at the age of 36, Vogel told ABC News in the US on Sunday (local time) that her critics were “haters” who “don’t have a right to tell me how to mourn the loss of my second child, that’s my domain”.

The mother and daughter were largely estranged since Panettiere, at 19, told Vogel she no longer wanted to be managed by her. “You owe me,” her mother responded, according to Panettiere’s memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning , released in May.

In the book, Panettiere also recounts struggling with childhood stardom before turning to drugs and alcohol as she got older.

In May, as the memoir was released, Panettiere said trying to maintain a relationship with her mother had been “tough”. Vogel responded by saying she was following a “no-contact rule” based on professional advice.

In her interview with ABC News , Vogel said Panettiere was happy until she was 17, but then, “I started seeing her going downhill.”

“As she got older, then it wasn’t my voice any more. I wasn’t in charge of her choices,” Vogel said. “I tried to give her the best advice I could, but again, you know, any young person, teen, come on, they want to be liberated. And I get that. I did get that.”

Panettiere’s death has led to fresh concerns about the mental health of child stars and prompted a group of former child actors to call out Hollywood for failing to protect them.

Leading the charge is Anna Paquin , who, more than three decades ago, became one of the youngest actors to win an Oscar for her breakout performance in The Piano.

“It’s not a coincidence that so many former, specifically pre-sexualised female, child ‘stars’ have profoundly sad lives and untimely ends,” Paquin wrote on Instagram .

Paquin’s note, posted days after Panettiere died from a suspected overdose and following Michelle Trachtenberg’s death last year and Daveigh Chase’s death in June, called for children’s welfare to be prioritised when young actors were performing intense and complex roles.

“We were not as protected by the ‘systems’ that look great on paper as we are supposed to be. RIP [Panettiere, Trachtenberg, Chase] and too many others,” Paquin said in her post. “It’s a strange small club we belong to, and you are worthy of support, no matter how our industry made us feel.”

It’s a sentiment Even Stevens actor Christy Carlson Romano echoed in an essay for Elle last week.

“I couldn’t sleep the other night,” Romano wrote. “I picked up my phone. Hayden Panettiere died. Crushed. Another performer I grew up with, gone too soon.”