Hayden Panettiere shared her experience giving up custody of her daughter to ex Wladimir Klitschko during a recent interview.
Panettiere, 33, Jada Pinkett Smith, Adrienne Banfield Norris and Kelly Osbourne, standing in for Willow Smith, spoke about the actress signing the custody papers for Kaya on “Red Table Talk.”
“You thought this was an agreement that you came to that it was best that your daughter be with her dad,” Banfield Norris asked the “Nashville” actress in an exclusive clip obtained by People magazine.
HAYDEN PANETTIERE OPENS UP ABOUT PAST ADDICTION OPIOIDS, ALCOHOL: ‘I HIT ROCK BOTTOM’
“At first it was not because it wasn’t a discussion,” the actress explained. “If [Klitschko] had come to me and said I think because of where you’re at right now and your struggles that you’re having it would be good for her to be over here with me for a while – which if I had probably had enough of a conversation I would’ve said, ‘OK that makes sense, I get it, I’ll come there to visit and stuff like that.'”
“Because of the way that it was done, it was very upsetting,” she added. “I mean, it was the worst signing those papers, the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever, ever had to do in my life.”
“The papers were to give [Klitschko] full custody.”
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Panettiere expected to have her daughter come see her once she “got better.”
“I was gonna go work on myself, I was gonna get better, and when I got better then things would change, and she could come to me and I could have my time with her, but that didn’t happen,” Panettiere said.
Panettiere gave up custody of Kaya in 2018 while battling an addiction to opiates and alcohol. That same year she split from ex Klitschko as well. The two had gotten engaged in 2013.
“He didn’t want to be around me,” Panettiere previously told People magazine of Klitschko. “I didn’t want to be around me. But with the opiates and alcohol, I was doing anything to make me feel happy for a moment. Then I’d feel worse than I did before. I was in a cycle of self-destruction.”
She previously described giving up custody of Kaya as the “hardest thing” she’s ever done.
“It was the hardest thing I ever had to do,” Panettiere told the outlet. “But I wanted to be a good mom to her – and sometimes that means letting them go.”
“Red Table Talk” airs on Wednesdays at 12 p.m. ET on Facebook Watch.
