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Photo: Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images
Hayden Panettiere is currently making her return to Hollywood, but first she’s opening up about her time away from the spotlight and her relationship with her 7-year-old daughter, Kaya. In a new interview on Facebook Watch’s Red Table Talk, Panettiere spoke about her “heartbreaking” decision to sign over custody of Kaya to her ex, Wladimir Klitschko, a former professional boxer.
The full episode won’t premiere until Wednesday, but in a clip released on Tuesday, Panettiere tells hosts Jada Pinkett Smith, Adrienne Banfield Norris, and guest host Kelly Osbourne that the original agreement giving Klitschko full custody “wasn’t a discussion.” She explained, “If he had come to me and said, ‘I think because of where you’re at right now and your struggles that you’re having, it would be good for her to be over here with me for a while’ — which if I had probably had enough of a conversation, I would’ve said, ‘Okay, that makes sense, I get it. I’ll come there to visit.’” She doesn’t go into details in the clip as to how exactly the custody arrangement was reached, but called the entire thing “very upsetting,” saying, “It was the worst, signing those papers. The most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever, ever had to do in my life.”
She also seemed to suggest that, despite her understanding that they would revisit the custody agreement after she sought treatment for addiction and postpartum depression — she recently completed trauma therapy and inpatient treatment, according to People — that hasn’t happened. “I was gonna go work on myself, I was gonna get better, and when I got better, then things would change and she could come to me and I could have my time with her, but that didn’t happen.”
In a previous interview with People, Panettiere spoke about sending her daughter to live in Ukraine in 2018 as she entered treatment, calling it “the hardest thing I ever had to do.” She added, “But the best thing for my daughter was to make sure she was okay, take care of myself, and make sure I could be a good mom to her. And sometimes that means letting go.”
Kaya has been living in Ukraine with her father — whose brother Vitali Klitschko is the mayor of Kyiv — since, though she reportedly left the country in February amid the invasion by Russia. (At the time, Panettiere told fans on Instagram that her daughter was “safe” and “not in Ukraine.”) In July, Panettiere told People that she was “just with” Kaya, saying, “She’s just an amazing child. She’s smart and she’s funny and for whatever reason, she still loves me.”
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