Hayden Panettiere Opens Up About Uneasy Milo Ventimiglia Romance

is reflecting on her short-lived romance with her Heroes castmate Milo Ventimiglia, which ended in 2009 after just 14 months.

The star, now 36, was said to have started dating Ventimiglia, now 48, in December 2007 when he was 30 and she was 18, but the pair were cast as Claire Bennet and Peter Petrelli in the NBC superhero drama as far back as early 2006.

'I saw him as my partner and that it was going to hopefully keep going and evolving and lead to marriage,' Panettiere said in her Us Weekly cover story on Wednesday.

'But it was a point of contention that I was unable to put the "I" in front of "love you" and at the time, I didn't realize or understand why it made me feel so uncomfortable. I could only say "love you" in a casual way. Being older, he was much more aware of what that meant. And that said a lot.'

A week before their split, Ventimiglia attempted to break up with Panettiere but her 'visceral' reaction frightened him so much he 'immediately took it back.'

'One hundred percent it was only because I was over the toilet, hysterically crying,' Panettiere recalled.

'It was like my world had crumbled. It was so out of left field, nothing that big or explosive had happened. Nothing had really gone wrong. Nobody cheated. I remember the look on his face being pure shock.'

The two-time Golden Globe nominee confesses about all of her past romances in her 320-page memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, which Grand Central Publishing will release on May 19.

Panettiere most recently split from convicted felon Brian Hickerson in 2020 following his eight domestic violence arrests.