Actress Hayden Panettiere Found Dead at 36

Actress Hayden Panettiere is dead at the age of 36. Panettiere began appearing in commercials at just 11 months old. She became a household name in her teens as one of the stars of the show Heroes, where she played a cheerleader with special powers. She also hit it big while in her 20s playing a country music star on the show Nashville. More recently, she was open about her mental health struggles publishing a memoir in May that revealed she suffered from depression, substance abuse, and that she had given up custody of her daughter but she didn't really like that phrase that she had given her up. She made the argument that she was in touch with her daughter or regular touch with her daughter, but that given her postpartum issues and her substance abuse issues, she concluded the daughter actually would be better off with the father. I mean, I don't know if that's giving her up or not, if you're still in her life, but it's clearly the responsible decision. I mean, you can take the most negative view of that and rip on her for giving up her kid. I see it as a mother rescuing her kid. I wish this Clancy mother had done the same. You know, it's like, if you recognize you can't take care of your child because of substance abuse or postpartum as they're arguing in the Clancy trial, you know, the good mothering thing to do is to remove yourself from that child. Sometimes the best thing for them is not to be with you. So it's just a small point as I read her bio. I didn't know much about Hayden before today, to be honest. I didn't watch either of those shows, but I've now spent the morning reading her story. And I have to say, it's like, it's new to me because I don't know her, but it's not new to me because I'm in news. And for 25 years now, I've been covering stories of child actors who end just like this, whose lives end just like this. Do not put your child into any industry that will make them a star as a minor. Don't do it. No matter how badly you need the money, no matter how badly your child tells you it's her dream or his dream, the answer is no, if you love them. Could be as a singer like Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, could be as an actress like Hayden or Amanda Bynes. It doesn't tend to end well. Look what's happening to Ariana Grande right now. Child actor, she made her start on Nickelodeon, a disgusting cesspool of child abuse. It just was, it was. There were actual pedophiles roaming around the set and a disturbed, inappropriate man running the entire channel and the show running there. So I mean, it's just, don't do it. And separate it apart from whether you happen to drop them into a cesspool of toxicity and abuse like Nickelodeon was, you're just setting them up for massive life failures unless that kid has got the strongest emotional resolve of all children out there. And that doesn't tend to be the case. For every Jodie Foster, there are far more River Phoenixes who Gen Xers will remember as the brother of Joaquin Phoenix who died of a drug overdose in front of a club when he was very young and a star and had been a child star who was in movies like Stand By Me. It's just, it's so rare that they grow up and have well-adjusted lives. And one of the main reasons is, have you ever had something great in your life? Were you ever the high school track star, football star, prom queen, or you were at the top of your college class and got recruited for grad school, or you made it big at your first job and got the biggest bonus, whatever it was, was there ever that time in your life? Well, if that big, big moment is never matched in its bigness by another event in your life, you may look back at that event and think it was your peak. A lot of people do. A lot of people look at their lives that way, as opposed to just like a river that runs and it has turns and it has tribulations and it has smooth times. Some people look at it more as like a mountain with a peak and then a descent. And they think they're failures. If they never recapture that peak. I disagree with this, but that is how a lot of people look at their lives. And if your child has her peak at age 17 or 11, it's going to be very hard for her to feel like she's a success after that. And the problem is child actors don't tend to make it in Hollywood. They may make it as children, but let's take a look at the biggest child star, at least one of the top three ever in our country. And that's gotta be Macaulay Culkin. What's he doing now? Do you know? I don't know. Got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame a couple of years ago and we saw him. Looks exactly the same, only in an adult body. I'm not ripping on him at all, the opposite. But he did not make it as a adult actor, not in any meaningful way, at least. You don't turn around every day on Broadway, there's another Macaulay Culkin production or new movie, it's just, he was a huge child star because he had gifts that made him really resonate as a child actor. And so this industry that builds them up, then rejects them. It rejects them and they can't ever reclaim that top of the mountain moment. They feel like a failure. Next thing you know, they're getting written up in the tabloids as having gained weight and some picture of them working in a grocery store, trying to humiliate them. That's our press, okay? But you are setting your child up to fail. And even if they don't get kicked out of the industry, like a Justin Bieber, how do you think he's doing? How does he look to you? Totally well-adjusted, comfortable in his own skin, the picture of happiness? No, no, not to me either. And he was never kicked out, he made it as a star and he became a star and maintained his stardom to this moment he does. Things happen to child stars that can be extremely damaging. Drew Barrymore has talked all about it. What happened to her when she was drinking at age 12 and engaging in all sorts of illicit behaviors that she regrets? And I think her mother has a lot of answering for. And she went through some very dark times. Now, thankfully she came out the other end and actually is a quite lovely person. Notwithstanding her Kamala Harris and Dylan Mulvaney interviews, I have to say, I met her, I think I told you guys this last spring and, or February, whatever it was, this last winter. She was delightful. And she's clearly gotten her act back together. But look at Bieber. So the industry can keep you afloat and a star and rich, and you can marry a supermodel, et cetera. But those demons that came into your life when you were 15 and too young to handle the things your parents allowed you to be subjected to, hello, like a weekend with Diddy and Usher, they can ruin you in a different way. So I'm not surprised to read the news about Gaydon Penetere at all. I'm sad. I lament the loss of this American young woman, but I don't think it's a pattern we're ever going to correct for, because there will always be incomplete mothers. And in some cases, daughters, like Britney Spears too, who shoved their child into the entertainment industry at too young and too precarious an age and don't have the skills or the desire to rescue them from the fallout that inevitably comes. And, you know, the nation will keep watching them on the big screen and shoving their popcorn in their mouths and moving on with their lives. I mean, it's not a judgment on the American people. It's like, you know, who are we to say anything about it? Like, if that's what you decided to do in your family, I don't want you to judge my family any more than you want me to judge yours. But when this happens, don't ask me to be surprised. I'm not. Thanks for watching this clip. If you're new here, subscribe. We got a whole lot more goodness where that came from. Would love to hear your feedback. You can email me too, Megan, M-E-G-Y-N at MeganKelly.com, or just leave a comment below. But join the community by becoming a subscriber. We really, really value your input and your support. We may not always agree, but we are always gonna talk about it and respect. No BS, no agenda, no fear. For the first time since World War II, our national debt has exceeded the gross domestic product. America's reckless government spending keeps catching up with us. Higher inflation, higher prices, higher cost of living expenses, and higher interest payments on the national debt. 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