Hayden Panettiere’s Mom Denies “You Owe Me” Claim, Says She Went “Downhill” After ‘Heroes’
Hayden Panettiere‘s mother Lesley Vogel fired back at critics, disputed a claim in her late daughter’s memoir and says the actress went “downhill” after being cast in Heroes during an interview with Good Morning America on Monday.
Vogel has been criticized for her initial comments about her estranged daughter’s sudden death at the age of 36. Vogel had said that the Nashville star had “sadly lost her way,” leading some to accuse her of being inappropriately critical of her late daughter.
“I would say to the haters out there, you don’t have a right to tell me how I mourn the loss of my second child,” she told GMA. “That’s my domain.”
Vogel also flatly denied an account by Panettiere in her May memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning.
In the book, the actress said that when she was 19 years old, she informed her mother that she no longer wanted her to manage her career. Panettiere wrote that Vogel replied, “You owe me.”
“I remember being in her trailer and literally saying nothing,” Vogel said. “It was a very short, very brief conversation and then she returned to set. I know I didn’t say what she said I said.”
Moreover, Vogel said her daughter had a “happy life” until she landed her breakout role in NBC’s 2006 hit Heroes.
“I would say Hayden had a very happy life up until she got Heroes at 16,” Vogel said. “Here she was the star of a major TV series, but I would say at 17 I started seeing her going downhill. As she got older and it wasn’t my voice anymore, I wasn’t in charge of her choices. I tried to give her the best advice I could. But again, any young person, teen, they want to be liberated. And I get that.”
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Vogel added that she doesn’t want her daughter to be remembered for her addiction struggles.
“I want Hayden to be remembered for the talented, beautiful, outgoing, intelligent woman she really was,” she said.
Previously, Vogel slammed Gayle King and Megyn Kelly for their recent criticism.
“I was very, very hurt and deeply disappointed in the lack of professionalism, the lack of compassion in slamming someone who’s lost two children, without even a modicum of consideration,” Vogel said during a recent interview with the Daily Mail regarding the CBS Mornings host and podcaster’s separate comments.
Following her death, Vogel spoke to NBC News on Tuesday, where she criticized her daughter’s on-again-off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson and said her daughter “lost her way.”
“This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death and that was Brian Hickerson,” she said at the time. “I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments and I think young people who grow up in the entertainment industry — it is a struggle and it’s a very challenging industry and it’s not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path.”
According to a Page Six report in May, Vogel had chosen the “no-contact route” with her daughter after “20 years of trauma” and on the advice of professionals. “As many parents of entertainment children [know], we are all too familiar with the painful observation of watching the self-destructive paths they sometimes choose,” she said at the time. “No parent hopes for this scenario.”
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