Holly Robinson Peete is backing Gayle King after the morning show host called out Hayden Panettiere’s estranged mom, Lesley Vogel, following her statement on the actress’ death.
“She’s not wrong,” Peete, 61, wrote via X on Wednesday, August 19, alongside a link to a story about King’s remarks in which she said that Vogel’s statement regarding her daughter after her death on Sunday, August 16, at the age of 36 left her thinking, “Thanks, Mom, for nothing.”
Peete called out Vogel, 70, in her own post, writing, “We know this young lady clearly had so many issues, but if you’re not gonna take accountability for the fact that you put her in the business that eventually messed her up then nothing you say has any integrity.”
The Hallmark Channel actress added, “She didn’t even say, ‘I will miss my daughter’ or ‘I loved my daughter the best way I could.’ Has she even mentioned the word daughter?”
“There were so many things she could have said to show us that she was a caring mother … And now both of her children are gone,” Peete continued, referring to Vogel’s son, Jansen Panettiere, who died in February 2023 from an undiagnosed heart condition.
Peete concluded, “It is all so tragic.💔 rip Hayden🙏🏽.”
Peete’s comments come one day after Vogel — who shared both Hayden and Jansen with ex-husband Skip Panettiere — broke her silence in the wake of the Nashville alum’s sudden death.
“I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments, and I think young people who grow up in the entertainment industry — it is a struggle and it’s a very challenging industry and it’s not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path,” Vogel said in a statement to NBC News on Tuesday, August 18.
Vogel, who was her daughter’s manager as a child, continued, “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.”
She explained, “I wish she had stayed true to herself because she had many incredible attributes.”
Vogel added that she took some solace in the fact that Hayden is now reunited with her sibling.
“I just feel that she’s with her brother and they’re at peace,” she told the outlet.
Prior to her death, Hayden exclusively told Us that her relationship with her mother was still rocky after their ups and downs.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a relationship right now,” the Remember the Titans actress said in May. “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t leave the door open for the opportunity to present itself one day. It’s hard for me to say, but I’ve chosen to be brutally honest. So that’s the honest truth of it.”
Vogel clapped back at Hayden that same month, claiming to Page Six that her daughter was trying to “sell books” after writing her 2026 memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, by describing “20 years of trauma.”
She further alleged that “this condition cannot be ‘fixed’” regardless of “continual efforts to support” or “comfort.”
King, 71, explained during the Wednesday broadcast of CBS Mornings that she wasn’t moved by Vogel’s words following Hayden’s death, claiming that Vogel’s complicated relationship with her child made her statement leave a lot to be desired.
“You hear stuff like that and you realize it was still very much in progress,” she told viewers, referring to the mother-daughter relationship. “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.”
Fellow CBS anchor Vladimir Duthiers was in complete agreement during the broadcast, adding, “I mean, Hayden Panettiere spent years publicly acknowledging her own failures, her own struggles.”
Duthiers, 56, noted, “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.”
Us confirmed that Hayden died on Sunday in South Carolina where she was reportedly in town to watch a friend perform.
According to 911 dispatch audio obtained by People, there was a mention of an “overdose” and “cardiac arrest” around the time of her death.
The coroner later told Us in a statement that paramedics responded to a call about a “reported cardiac arrest.”
“EMS personnel initiated advanced cardiac life support measures; however, resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful, and the individual was pronounced deceased at 2:32 PM,” the medical examiner’s statement read.
Hayden is survived by her 11-year-old daughter, Kaya, whom she shared with ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko.
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