Hayden Panettiere 'Desperately Needed' Those Years Away From Hollywood!

Hayden Panettiere has no regrets about stepping back from Hollywood for a few years.

As Perezcious readers may know, the 35-year-old actress took a break from acting after her popular show Nashville ended in 2018 and didn’t return to the business until four years later when she starred in Scream IV in 2023, reprising her role as Kirby Reed. During that time away, she got sober in 2021 after battling alcohol and drug addiction as well as postpartum depression.

While Hayden never planned to stay away from Hollywood for that long, it ended up being a huge blessing for her. She told Us Weekly in an interview on Wednesday:

“I had taken four years off. Didn’t know or plan to, but that’s just the way it panned out. And I desperately needed it.”

The Ice Princess star said leaving the spotlight was “never” in her mind but “happened organically,” and it allowed her to return in a “different place in life.” She added:

“The things that I’ve done before … it was just different enough that I felt like it was a blank canvas that I could paint onto anything I wanted on. And now try to take my career in a direction that I wasn’t able to go in before.”

Amazing! However, Hayden was comfortable enough to “jump back in” because she surrounded herself with people she could count on. She also felt more “grounded” now than ever before:

“I feel much more solid and grounded in this world, the crazy world that we live in.”

That said, she noted this new “version” of herself is still “evolving and changing”:

“It’s healthy to continue to keep evolving as a person. Which I always try to do to keep reinventing ourselves and learning more things about ourselves and our wants and needs and dislikes and all the above. But I’ve never been this version of me, I’ve never been as OK with being who I am without feeling the need to apologize for anything. I feel like I’ve finally earned the right to an opinion.”

With this new chapter of life, Hayden, who has been in the business since she was 4, refuses to be brushed “aside” like a “young kid” who “doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” Good for her! Now, the Heroes alum is “hopeful for the future” as she takes on new projects, like her upcoming horror-comedy movie A Breed Apart.

All anyone wants is to see Hayden thriving and living her best life! We can’t wait to see what she does next in this new era! Reactions? Let us know in the comments.

[Image via Paramount Pictures/YouTube , MEGA/WENN]