What an absolute tragedy. After the world got notified of Hayden Panettiere’s death on August 16th, I knew the name sounded familiar but I couldn’t exactly place who the actress was. Upon seeing her picture, I still wasn’t any closer to figuring out who this beautiful actress was nor what shows or movie I had seen her in. Little did I know at the time but she has been in the movie industry literally her entire life. When I finally learned that she was the little girl in Remember the Titans, one of my all time favorite sports movie ever, only then did the full shock of her death hit me.

Shortly after, I had also learned that her biography had just been released a couple of months ago. A New York-based magazine published an excerpt from one of the later chapters in the book, and it was then that I learned that she was an alcoholic addict and that she had just recently gotten through the recovery program. But her loss was immense, especially her guardianship of her baby daughter, Kaya. It was a very interesting and quick read and I just knew I had to read the entire book immediately. Although her death is still very recent and no official autopsy report nor any cause of death has been reported, the few bits of information coming out to the public would make it seem that she was in cardiac arrest and a possible likely scenario was that she overdosed on drugs and that a can of Narcan was found at her residence.

I rarely read biographies and memoirs, especially those of famous actors and actresses, but This Is Me was a wonderful read about Hayden’s life. There’s a lot of happiness in her life, but there was definitely a lot of sadness as well. We learn how her mother pushed her into the movie industry literally before she could even walk as a baby. The intense pressure on Hayden fortunately gave her a career in which she excelled, but one can only assume the amount of trauma she had to endure during her childhood. In fact, she does go over her difficult and unusual childhood in detail. She was basically forced to become far more mature than her years would suggest due to her demanding acting career, and she admits to some unsettling observations about receiving love and adoration through her fame.

In another quite shocking piece, I had no idea she had been partnered for a time with Hall of Fame heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko, and that they had a daughter together. But I think the most shocking of all is how she just spiraled into depression and suddenly became an alcoholic after she had given birth. She admits a lot of things in her memoir here, and it’s scary when she presents it to us. It’s obvious that some readers and many others will just never understand how or why a person in her position, with status and such fame, could ever develop a mental illness, become depressed, and ultimately an addict. But I think her choice to give up guardianship of Kaya without a fight was the best thing she could have done. However, we now don’t know whether that played a part in her death. That and/or her love for her brother, who also passed away recently.

I’m really glad to have read her book and to learn of her story. I will have to absolutely admit that if it wasn’t due to her unfortunate and untimely death that I would never have done so. It’s a quick and easy though very tragic read at times. It does seem like she just wanted to be loved for who she was. She just didn’t want to be lonely and yet for all her glamour, wealth, fame and beauty, she was completely that.