Hayden Panettiere discussed her sexuality at length in her debut memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning.
“Girls were much more my speed,” Panettiere, 36, wrote in the book, published on Tuesday, May 19. “Girls made me feel welcome … and also a little bit turned on.”
Panettiere revealed in the book that she first experimented with a girl at around 8 or 9 years old, writing that her dad walked in on them.
“I didn’t want anything to disturb my parents, period. I’ve also never told the public I’ve been with women,” she wrote. “I say ‘been with women’ because I haven’t fallen in love or had anything beyond sexual relationships with any, though I suppose that could happen someday.”
Panettiere continued, “I have been attracted to women just as long as I’ve been attracted to men.”
The actress wrote that she didn’t want to publicly discuss her sexuality until she had “the confidence and trust” in herself.
“For the sake of your mental health, your relationships with others and your path forward in life, it’s so important to be comfortable with who you are,” she wrote. “No matter who you’re attracted to or where your hands end up.”
Panettiere told Us Weekly exclusively in her cover story earlier this month that she identifies as bisexual.
“The first time it even crossed my mind to touch on this subject was while I was in the process of writing this book,” she shared. “It took two years to write this book, and I did not know what I was going to feel comfortable touching on.”
Panettiere took a “why not?” approach when it came to revealing this part of herself.
She continued, “I’ve chosen to be completely brutally honest about this. That’s something about me that I was never able to share with the world, because it was just never the right time.”
Growing up in the public eye made it difficult for Panettiere to discuss her sexuality.
She felt “forced to be perfect at all times,” the actress explained, noting that she was “afraid” people would think she was “jumping on the bandwagon” by coming out.
“I was not encouraged to just be myself,” Panettiere told Us. “No one ever encouraged me to just be myself, and then it came, the period of time, where it felt like people coming out, especially women coming out, and saying that they were bisexual, or liked girls, was a fad.”
This Is Me: A Reckoning is out now.
