Hayden Panettiere’s estranged mother, Lesley Vogel, is responding to Gayle King after the morning show host criticized her first public statement following her daughter’s death.
“There is infinite sadness,” Vogel, 70, told the Daily Mail in an interview published on Saturday, August 22, alleging that the criticism she has received from King, 71, as well former Fox News reporter Megyn Kelly and others, has made the pain of her daughter’s death worse.
“But this is not the time for me to be weak,” the mother of two, who also lost her 28-year-old son, Jansen, to an undiagnosed heart condition three years ago, added. “I don’t have the luxury right now of being weak. I have too much to do for Hayden. When I’m done with that, then I will give myself the luxury to mourn — deeply mourn. I’m not saying I’m not grieving now. I am, and I do have my moments. But the bigger picture right now is I have to stay strong. I don’t have an option.”
She continued, “I was very, very hurt and deeply disappointed in the lack of professionalism, the lack of compassion in slamming someone who’s lost two children, without even a modicum of consideration. No one reached out to me before. It’s shameful. It’s unconscionable to me.”
Panettiere’s father, Skip Panettiere, confirmed her death to Us on Sunday, August 16, after she was found unresponsive from a suspected overdose. She was 36.
Vogel, who served as Panettiere’s manager when she was a child actor, spoke out for the first time on the Nashville alum’s death on Tuesday, August 18.
“I think it becomes very difficult to be true to yourself and I think Hayden sadly lost her way and I wish it were different,” Vogel, 70, told NBC News, in part, via a statement at the time. “I wish she had stayed true to herself because she had many incredible attributes.”
She added of her daughter, “I just feel that she’s with her brother and they’re at peace.”
King discussed Vogel’s statement on the Wednesday, August 19, broadcast of CBS Mornings.
“You know, guys, you read this and all I think is, ‘Thanks, Mom, for nothing,” King said while appearing alongside her fellow CBS personalities Kelly O’Grady and Vladimir Duthiers.
“I mean, Hayden Panettiere spent years publicly acknowledging her own failures, her own struggles,” Duthiers, 56, noted on Wednesday. “She cannot respond now, and for her mother to use these days after Hayden’s death to just remind the world just how much trauma she caused, it’s unseemly.”
King went on to recall how often Hayden acknowledged her “complicated” and estranged relationship with Vogel prior to her shocking death, explaining in May that it was a “work in progress.”
“You hear stuff like that and you realize it was still very much in progress,” King stated. “It makes me so sad that, of the opportunity that you have after your daughter’s death, that’s what you choose to leave us with.”
Former Fox News personality Kelly, 55, also slammed Vogel for her response in the wake of her daughter’s death.
“You failed at your job… You got an F as a parent. You made a bunch of money off of your daughter,” the reporter-turned-podcaster said. “You probably have a super nice car and a big house. You failed. You raised someone to the age of majority who doesn’t feel safe, loved, or cherished. You’re a loser.”
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