Mom Questions Timing of Hayden Panettieres Bisexuality Reveal

Hayden Panettiere was met with support and praise after she opened up about her sexuality this week – but for her mother, the public announcement raised questions.

In an interview with Us Weekly to promote her upcoming memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, the 36-year-old actress , telling the publication that she felt 'sad' at having to wait this long 'to share that part of me.'

'Now that I know that this book is coming out, and that I've chosen to share it with the world, I'm comfortable saying I'm bisexual,' she said. 'I'm comfortable to confidently say that, yes, I am bisexual. I said it!'

Lesley Vogel, Panettiere’s estranged mother, was skeptical about the timing and suggested her daughter’s sexuality was not really a secret.

Reacting to her daughter's public declaration, Vogel, 70, told the Daily Mail: 'I do not believe it was being hidden, but there is no historic proof that this is the case.

'I do think the timing of this coming out is very interesting.'

In the explosive new interview, Panettiere confessed to secretly dating women, whom she preferred to men from 'a very, very young age.'

'I didn't really have the courage to throw myself fully, emotionally into it, because then if I did fall in love, that wasn't something that I wanted to ever have to hide,' she told Us Weekly.

'I didn't feel confident enough, and I was too afraid to really let that part of me explore that part of me.'

Panettiere addressed the status of her relationship with her mom during her Us Weekly interview, and said the door is open for a future reconciliation.

'Unfortunately, we don't have a relationship right now,' she said of her mom. 'But that doesn't mean that I don't leave the door open for the opportunity to present itself one day.'

But her mom - who told the Daily Mail that their estrangement was a 'recent occurrence,' claiming it began around 'mid-September' of 2025 - sounded less hopeful.

'We each are entitled to choose our path in life,' Vogel told the Daily Mail. 'After 20 years of trauma, chaos, addictions [and] accusations, I felt I had no other option but to choose no contact.'

She added: 'There will forever be a lingering hope that she will find her own path to inner peace.' 

Vogel confirmed that she has not read Panettiere's upcoming memoir, out on May 19, which she presumably was not sent given their estrangement.

Panettiere has said that she gets 'brutally honest' in the book about her mother pushing her too hard and doubling as her manager.

Panetierre split from Wladimir Klitschko in 2018 after nine years (pictured in 2013)