Ex Throws Shade at Hayden Panettiere's Mom Over Memoir Backlash

When your ex weighs in on your family drama, you know things have gotten messy. That’s where actress Hayden Panettiere finds herself after her ex, Brian Hickerson, decided to publicly defend her against her estranged mother’s latest criticism.

The tension centers around Panettiere’s upcoming memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, which covers some seriously heavy ground—addiction struggles, family trauma, and abusive relationships. Among the revelations: Panettiere opens up about her bisexuality and how she felt pressured to keep parts of her identity private while working in Hollywood under her mother’s management.

Lesley Vogel, Panettiere’s former momager, didn’t take the memoir revelations well. She publicly questioned the timing of her daughter’s bisexuality disclosure, suggesting it was more about promoting the book than genuine healing. It’s the kind of dismissive parental response that stings twice—once for the accusation, and again because it plays out in front of an audience.

Enter Hickerson. When TMZ’s Charlie Neff asked if he knew Panettiere was attracted to women, his response was refreshingly straightforward: Hayden is into beautiful people. But when the conversation turned to Lesley Vogel, he dropped the gloves. He called her by far one of the worst people he’s ever met, offering no room for nuance or diplomacy.

That’s a bold statement coming from someone in Panettiere’s past—especially given their own turbulent history. But here’s where it gets interesting: even a former partner feels compelled to push back against how her mother is handling this moment. Lesley has countered by accusing her daughter of giving her 20 years of trauma and framing the memoir as a cash grab rather than a genuine reckoning. The irony of that accusation—that Panettiere is weaponizing her truth for profit—is that it forces a question nobody really wants to ask: when a parent dismisses a child’s coming-out as inauthentic, whose trauma are we actually talking about?

This Is Me: A Reckoning promises to be a conversation starter. It’s already generating headlines about Panettiere’s addiction battles and past relationship violence. But the real story might be about what happens when someone finally claims her own narrative—and how the people closest to her respond when she does.