Hayden Panettiere’s Story Shines A Light On Motherhood’s Darkest Struggle

Postpartum depression is getting its 15 minutes of fame. But this complicated disorder demands more than a glance when the stakes are life and death.

Following actor Hayden Panettiere’s death on Sunday, reports of a broken contract with Neutrogena resurfaced, triggering new calls to boycott the skincare brand. Panettiere had claimed the skincare giant severed ties with her after she went public about her struggle with postpartum depression (PPD).

“There’s a lot of people out there who think that it’s not real, that it’s not true, that it’s something that’s made up in their mind,” Panettiere revealed on “Live With Kelly and Michael” in 2015. She said she identified with her character Juliette Barnes’ postpartum depression storyline that aired on “Nashville” in season 3 the same year. 

“It’s really painful, and it’s really scary, and women need a lot of support. We do something that no man can do on this planet. We grow a human being in our bodies.” 

The live audience erupted in validating applause. Panettiere had just given birth to her daughter, Kaya, in December 2014. She would later relinquish custody to her ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko when the couple split in 2018, amid Panettiere’s battle with PPD and substance addiction.

Panettiere had been in a decade-long contract with Neutrogena that began when she was a teen. She recalled in her autobiography “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” released in May, “My relationship with Neutrogena helped dictate every outfit I wore, every hair and makeup choice, and how I acted when I was out on the town. I never let the paparazzi see me holding a drink — underage Neutrogena girls didn’t do that — and while I didn’t force myself to dress modestly, I never showed too much skin.”

“They have morals clauses which had a huge impact on my life,” Panettiere told the “On Purpose With Jay Shetty” podcast on May 11. “I was a teenager, and I had all the paparazzi around me catching all these gory moments… every cigarette that I smoked or bad outfit… This was the last thing that I thought they would ever fire me over.” 

When the topic of PPD “just came up” on “Live,” Panettiere said she was “just being honest” about her experience and didn’t think twice about possible fallout regarding her brand deal. “I got that call that Neutrogena wanted to fire me over that, and my representative at the time said, ‘That’s illegal. You can’t do that.’” The brand ultimately ended her contract.

Panettiere didn’t show the receipts, but a morals clause is common in agreements between major brands and celebrity spokespeople. “This lets the company terminate the deal immediately if the spokesperson does something to sully their public image,” intellectual property attorney Brian D. Wassom explains. “[It] can put quite severe restrictions on the spokesperson’s behavior. But from the company’s perspective, it’s simply protecting their investment.”

For the record, Neutrogena seemingly had no trouble sullying its moral reputation when it partnered with trans-identifying influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a social media promo in 2022. Mulvaney declared his pronouns as “she/they” and proceeded to splash himself with water until mascara ran from his eyes, and his white cropped tank top got so wet it was nearly transparent. 

But, according to Panettiere, a candid discussion about the realities of actual women and motherhood was a bridge too far. Neutrogena’s parent company Kenvue did not respond to The Daily Wire’s request for comment. 

“I knew if I was gonna do this, I wanted to rip the Band-Aid off, and I wanted to be completely, brutally, painfully honest,” Panettiere told Us Weekly at the time. “When I was honest about [postpartum depression] and came out, the repercussions were shocking and had such a negative impact on my life. But at the same time had such a positive impact on other people’s lives who had been through it. It’s one of those topics that has so much stigma around it.” 

Supporters of the late actor now claim they’re done with the beauty brand. Social posts read: “I will never buy Neutrogena as long as I live,” “Every Neutrogena product in my house went in the trash,” and “Neutrogena, you will BURN to the ground for what you did to Hayden.”

Just over a decade after Panettiere first spoke out, PPD — a disorder that affects one in seven women — remains a stain on the myth of the perfect mother. Caring for a newborn is a full-time job. And we’re over here acting like it’s no big thing to expect mom to fix breakfast, pack scratch-made lunches, bathe and dress a handful of young kids, prep dinner, gas up the car, post a viral #GetReadyWithMe on her socials, and make it to the office for a promotion-worthy presentation by 7 a.m.

Despite increasing cultural awareness of PPD, some still question its validity, preferring to brush it off as falling under the normal stress of a newborn or the reformation of a formerly selfish parent — not an actual clinical diagnosis. 

Accused killer Lindsay Clancy’s trial shed a blinding light on the brutal reality of what her defense claims is the much rarer postpartum psychosis. Had she gotten the treatment and support she needed, perhaps her children could have lived to see their mother recover. 

Reproductive psychobiologist Dr. Jen Hahn-Holbrook, an assistant professor at the University of California, Merced, is one of the world’s leading experts on postpartum depression. And she says Panettiere’s history of trauma pointed to PPD from the jump.

“The postpartum period is a time when women are especially vulnerable to all mental health conditions actually — especially depression, but also anxiety and OCD,” she told The Daily Wire. “Basically, if you have any predispositions towards mental illness, it’s a perfect storm.”

“There are these huge transitions. You’ve got this giant hormone withdrawal, which does affect a lot of women in terms of their mood. And then on top of that, you have sleep disturbances. You’re up all night with a crying baby. And then you’ve got the relationship changes. You’ve got a brand new baby, someone to care for, and so many more responsibilities. You’re trying to juggle it all with a marriage … your whole life is just [one] giant upheaval.”

Her research suggests that global statistics lean more toward one in five women experiencing PPD, and that “80% of women report some type of mood disturbance,” or the kind of mild depression people refer to as “baby blues.” It can hit anyone at any income level, anywhere in the world.

She says of cases like Panettiere’s, “It is more common in people who don’t have a supportive partner. Obviously, if they have any mental health conditions, like drug use, addiction, anxiety, depression, a history of trauma… it just exacerbates any underlying vulnerabilities.” 

Board-certified OB-GYN Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), suggests that in order for the stigma around PPD to change, communities are responsible for pitching in to help new moms and taking the conversation on PPD out into the streets.

“One of the best things that we can do is have more of a public conversation about this,” she tells The Daily Wire. “So many women are told, ‘Oh, it’s just postpartum. It’s going to go away. It’s going to get better.’ What we need to be doing is allowing women’s voices to be heard and really discussing the support that women really need. I think research into women’s health in general tends to be underfunded, and I think more focus on non-pharmaceutical interventions could be done.”

“We do see that babies’ outcomes are worse if mom has untreated severe postpartum depression. So not only are we improving Mom’s life and her extended family’s life if we can get her through this and out of this, but we’re impacting her baby’s health as well.”

As for the best chance of postpartum success, the constant refrain is support. A new mother needs the support of people who know her and can recognize the changing signs of depression. Slight shifts could be as subtle as not responding to her baby’s cry. But Dr. Francis assures mothers that even with a solid support system in place, “This is not a failure on your part.”

“This is 100% addressable,” she says. “You reaching out and saying that you need help actually shows that you’re actively advocating for yourself and for your baby.” 

She also notes the relief in looking toward the light at the end of the tunnel. “This is going to be a limited, defined period of time in your life,” she says. “Even though it seems really overwhelming and really hard right now, and it is, know that there’s going to be an end to this. We are here to walk with you and get you through this until you get to that point where it gets better. Sometimes I think just knowing in our minds that there’s going to be an end is helpful.” 

Maybe Panettiere reignited a conversation we needed to have. In the pages of her book, she offered a gentle reminder: “All you want to know is that somebody else has gone through and survived what you’re going through.”

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