Hayden Panettiere has come out as bisexual.

The Nashville actress - who has 11-year-old daughter Kaya with former fiance Wladimir Klitschko - finally feels "comfortable" and confident enough to speak about her sexuality publicly, having previously felt it wasn't the "right time" to come out and admit she is attracted to both men and women.

Explaining why she addressed the topic for the first time in her new memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, she said: "Now that I know that this book is coming out, and that I've chosen to share it with the world, I'm comfortable to confidently say that yes, I am bisexual. I said it! This is the first time I got to say it out loud....

"That's something about me I was never able to share with the world, because it was just never the right time.

"It was either I was too young, and I was being forced to be perfect at all times. I was not encouraged to just be myself.

"Then came the period where it felt like people coming out, especially women, saying that they were bisexual or liked girls, was a fad. I was afraid that if I was honest, it was going to be like me jumping on the bandwagon. It was a very difficult topic to articulate properly.

"It's sad I had to wait until I was 36 years old to share that part of me, but better late than never, right?"

Hayden has dated women before but found it "scary" because of the public scrutiny she experiences.

Asked if she ever tried dating women, she said: "Yeah, I did. It was scary, though, because there were paparazzi always waiting for me outside, to follow me everywhere. I had very little privacy. I have dated women.

"I was much more into women even as a child than I was men. I have explored it, but because I hadn't shared this with anybody, 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."

Hayden has battled addiction over the years and in 2018, she relinquished custody of her daughter to Wladimir and she feels lucky now to have "an incredible relationship" both with the boxer and their little girl.

She said: "I have an incredible relationship with both of them. I'm so grateful for Wlad.

"We're very close, and have had a deep friendship, along with a relationship, since I met him when I was 19.

"So to see that we still have this bond and the ability to coparent and show our daughter [that] even though we're not together, doesn't mean that there's a lack of love here, and it doesn't mean that you're unsafe.

"And my daughter, she's just an incredible gift. She's otherworldly and so kind and so fierce and surrounded by good people, and it's incredible for me to be able to watch her thrive in areas that I struggled with growing up.

"She's just the best thing, all the best parts of me and Wlad."

Wladimir and his brother Vitali have been active in their native Ukraine's war against Russia and not only is Hayden grateful she has still been able to spend time with Kaya during that period, she admires the way her daughter has handled the conflict.

She said: "As soon as that war broke out [in 2022], I made sure I was right there next to my daughter, while we watched her father and her uncle fight on the front lines.

"She was so brave about it, and so reasonable and rational. You're afraid that if they don't fully process their emotions, then they're going to ignore it, and it's going to have a terrible impact on them later in life.

"But I remember, I sat her down and had a conversation with her about the war, and I said, 'Do you have any questions?' And her only question was, 'Why is Putin doing this?' The one question that I really couldn't answer. I tried my best to answer it.

"Luckily everyone's safe, alive and well."