Hayden Panettiere is looking back on her past with ex-boyfriend Brian Hickerson.
“It’s a very embarrassing subject. I’ve always seen myself as such a resilient and strong woman, that the idea that I could allow something like this to happen to me, it blew my mind,” Panettiere, 36, exclusively shares in the latest Us Weekly cover story ahead of the release of her This Is Me: A Reckoning memoir. “It blew the minds of the people that knew me best. They, still to this day, can’t believe that I would ever allow that to happen to me.”
Panettiere was first romantically linked to Hickerson, 37, in 2018. He was arrested the next year following an alleged domestic violence incident with the former child star. Hickerson was subsequently charged with felony domestic violence and ordered to stay away from Panettiere. The charges were dropped and Hickerson was later arrested in 2020 following another domestic violence altercation with Panettiere. He served 33 days in prison, was placed on four years probation and ordered to pay a $500 fine.
“That whole experience, I kept as much of it to myself as possible because I didn’t want to drag anybody that I loved emotionally into such an upsetting situation,” the Heroes alum tells Us, referring to her parents and brother Jansen before his 2023 death. “I knew that they would want to protect me and would do anything to make sure that I was safe, and I wanted to keep them safe, and … emotionally safe.”
Hayden Panettiere and Brian Hickerson’s Relationship Timeline
She continues, “It was humiliating. It was embarrassing, so I didn’t want anyone to know. I wanted people to know as little as possible.”
For the actress, she felt that confessing the incident would be more embarrassing than being alone.
“I’m a pack animal. I need to be surrounded by people,” she says. “If I don’t have a good community around me, if I don’t have good people around me and good supportive friends, I feel lost. I don’t feel like I can be myself. I don’t feel like I can function properly [and] the depression gets the best of me.”
Panettiere and Hickerson broke up for good following his second arrest.
“Getting an abusive person out of your life is like trying to rip a weed out that is so entangled into your life,” she adds of the breakup. “Every time you pull it out, another weed pops back up and you’re like, ‘I thought I killed this.’ They always manage to find a way to slither back into your life, even if you’re an incredibly strong-willed person.”
Hayden Panettiere Gets ‘Brutally Honest’: Child Stardom, Crushing Loss, More
Panettiere stated that she “struggled to fully put a kibosh” on the end of her relationship with Hickerson “for a long time.”
Panettiere further detailed her relationship with Hickerson in her upcoming memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning.
“It was brutal, it was traumatic, it was emotional,” she says of chronicling the past abuse in the book. “It was so important for me to word that experience properly.”
According to Panettiere, rereading a journal entry from the time of the alleged incident was particularly cathartic.
“It felt like I had finally found the words to describe it properly,” she explains. “It was such a powerful moment for me, getting that off my chest.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.
This Is Me: A Reckoning will be released on Tuesday, May 19.
For more from Panettiere, pick up the new issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands now.
