Hayden Panettiere has a diverse acting resume to her name, but country fans may know her best as Juliette Barnes in the show "Nashville." The drama ran for four seasons on ABC and two on CMT, and it followed the ups and downs of fictional country singers in the Nashville music industry.
Panettiere's character struggled with substance abuse — including alcohol and drug dependence — throughout the series. The actress also endured similar struggles in her own life, and in a recent interview with The Messenger, she said it was "very traumatizing" to act out the story lines. She adds that she felt as if she was "acting out my own life."
"Straight from the beginning, it was like, I'm dating a football player, [and then] Juliette dates a football player. And then they turned her into an alcoholic," Panettiere tells the publication.
The show also included a story line about Barnes "leaving her daughter and going to this crazy [place] in Europe." Panettiere has been open in the past about giving custody of her own daughter to her ex-husband, Wladimir Klitschko.
"They weren't creating new storylines," Panettiere says of the show's writers. "They were just looking at my life and going, 'Oh, let's just take what she's going through and put our little spin on it.' And then, ta-da! It's done and done."
Panettiere's past struggles have included postpartum depression as well as alcohol and opiate abuse. The actress opened up about giving up custody of her daughter, Kaya, amidst her struggles on an episode of "Red Table Talk" in 2022. She called it the "the most heartbreaking thing" she's ever done. She also suggested that she didn't fully realize the implications of the decision at the time.
