At the end of Hayden Panettiere’s memoir, which she published in May, she wrote about learning the principle of “radical acceptance” in her years of treatment programs for drug and alcohol addiction.

The actor and singer, who died Sunday at the age of 36 in South Carolina of a suspected drug overdose, wrote in “This Is Me: A Reckoning” that radical acceptance happens “when you accept a situation for exactly what it is, without controlling or trying to change it.” The former star of “Heroes,” “Nashville” and the “Scream” franchise said this principle helped her walk “hand in hand with my triumphs and tragedies because they’ve made me who I am.” She also said, “today, I really love that person,” though she also said she was “a work in progress.”

Among the situations Panettiere had to accept was the sudden death of her younger brother Jansen in 2023 from a heart condition and her ordeal with alleged domestic violence. But her greatest sadness, she wrote, was her inability to be the mother she wanted to be for her 11-year-old daughter, Kaya, first because of postpartum depression and then because of her struggles with addiction. When Kaya was 3, Panettiere said she signed over custody to her ex-fiancé, Ukrainian former world heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko.

“Not being under the same roof with her every day has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life, and it’s hard to describe the layers of emotion — including sadness, resentment, and anger — I’ve felt because of it,” Panettiere wrote. “I grieve that I’m not the mother I thought I’d be and definitely not the mother I want to be (trust me, no one should ever have to raise a child on FaceTime), and although I miss Kaya so much my heart aches, I know how blessed I am to be her mom.”

In her memoir and in interviews, Panettiere was usually pretty open about the dark times in her personal and professional life, which also included struggling with the consequences of fame, as the internet gave rise to such celebrity gossip sites as TMZ and Perez Hilton, which “made names for themselves by tearing celebrities apart,” she wrote.

Panettiere’s career began at 11 months, when she appeared in a Playskool toy train commercial, according to Forbes. Starting at age 4, she became a busy, working actor, with roles in soap operas “One Life To Live” and “Guiding Light” and in films such as “Remember the Titans,” opposite Denzel Washington,” and in the “Scream” franchise.

Panettiere became one of the most recognizable faces on American TV at age 16 by playing Claire Bennet, a high school cheerleader with special healing powers, in the NBC series “Heroes.” But around that time, as Panettiere wrote in her memoir, trusted members of her team began giving her what she believed were amphetamines before red carpet appearances and interviews to give her energy and to make her “animated, exciting” and “a social butterfly.” Panettiere also described a couple of disturbing situations as a young female star when she believed she was being offered up sexually to older male celebrities, including an “an Oscar-winning actor and director” and a famous British singer-songwriter on a yacht.

Shortly after Panettiere began co-starring in “Nashville,” playing teenage country sensation Juliette Barnes, she resumed a relationship with Klitschko, whom she briefly dated a few years earlier. They announced their engagement in 2013, and she gave birth to their daughter in 2014.

But the birth by Cesarean section was traumatic because Panettiere said her blood failed to clot, so she had to have seven blood transfusions to stop her from bleeding out. She also developed an infection. When she woke from anesthesia, she said she felt “nothing” for her newborn daughter. Over the next few months, she felt a “total blackout of emotion, like my soul was dead,” she wrote.

This postpartum depression became the condition under which which her addiction escalated, as Panettiere described needing a rush dopamine or something else to break through the numbness. She soon became dependent on alcohol and Klonopin, a central nervous system depressant, even as she returned to work on “Nashville.”

But between seasons 3 and 4 of the series — when Kaya was 4 months old — Panettiere said she checked into rehab for the first time. She also received her diagnosis of postpartum depression. But “the anxiety crept back in, overtook me” and Panettiere said she began using again.

During the first three years of Kaya’s life, Panettiere and Klitschko split their time between the United States and Ukraine until their relationship began to fizzle. During a 2018 trip to Kyiv to pick up Kaya, after she had spent some time with her father, Panettiere said he asked her to meet him at a restaurant. There, he presented her with papers, asking her to sign over custody of Kaya to him.

“I want full custody,” Klitschko told her. “I worry about Kaya when she’s with you.”

When Panettiere protested that Kaya had nannies and she had never been drunk and alone with their daughter, Klitschko said: “I don’t want to hurt you, but your friends have called me. I’ve talked to your friends about how you’re living your life.”

“I remember every second of that day,” Panettiere wrote. “Every (expletive) second. No mother could forget a single thing about the day she signed her child away.”

Panettiere considered her options. But she knew that a yearslong international custody battle “would destroy me psychologically at a time when my heart and soul were weaker than they’d ever been.” She wrote she was at the beginning of her recovery, and she realized she didn’t want to put her daughter in the middle of such a custody fight.

By the time Panettiere wrote her memoir, any anger she felt toward Klitschko had dissipated. “I don’t blame Wlad for any of my wrongs; I take full responsibility for my part in our relationship and my shortcomings as a mom,” Panettiere wrote. She called him courageous, a “true hero” and “amazing father to Kaya.”

Despite being a long-distance parent, Panettiere believed her bond with her daughter was “incredibly strong.” However, she also made clear that the pain never went away.

“I’ve always strived to be a positive person, but I grieve all the hours I lost to addiction, my broken relationships, and my loved ones who are no longer here,” Panettiere wrote. “I also know I’m not alone when I say that the fact my family fell apart still stings. I’ve spent years in treatment trying to make sense of these losses, and I’ve concluded that the only thing I can change is myself and the person I want to be.”

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