Hayden Panettiere is looking back at her teenage romance with Milo Ventimiglia with a very different perspective now. She was 18 when she dated her 30-year-old co-star.
While the age gap still raises questions, the actress is now thinking about that chapter through the lens of motherhood. In her upcoming book, ‘This Is Me: A Reckoning‘, Panettiere reflects on why the relationship made sense to her at the time and how her family viewed it.
Hayden Panettiere Admits Her Daughter May Follow In Her Footsteps
Panettiere discusses the romance with Milo Ventimiglia in her upcoming book, ‘This Is Me: A Reckoning,’ and now, talks about the nearly 12-year age gap between them, given her greater life experience. When Entertainment Weekly asked Panettiere about dating Ventimiglia when she was 18 and he was 30, she immediately connected the question to her own daughter. “That’s hard. My daughter’s 11, so I’m trying to think of how I would feel,” Panettiere said in an exclusive interview about her book.
The actress then admitted that she can already imagine Kaya making similar choices as she grows older. “I’m sure she’s going to do exactly what Mommy did,” the actress continues. “I’m ready and prepared for it, but I think it’s about the person. I was working with him all the time. My family knew him well. I was also … At 18, I lived so much life that he almost couldn’t count me as being 18. So Milo and I, even though he was 30, had a lot more in common than people might think.”
The ‘Nashville‘ alum also spoke about Ventimiglia earlier this month while discussing the memoir with Us Weekly. She said she gave herself fully to every relationship and saw Ventimiglia as someone who could become a long-term partner. “Every relationship I’ve ever been in, I invested my whole self in,” she told when asked about Ventimiglia earlier this month. “I saw him as my partner, and that it was going to hopefully keep going and evolving and lead to marriage.”
Hayden Panettiere Reveals How Hard The Breakup With Milo Ventimiglia Hit Her
Panettiere also reflected on one emotional issue from that relationship. “But it was a point of contention that I was unable to put the ‘I’ in front of ‘love you’ and at the time, I didn’t realize or understand why it made me feel so uncomfortable. I could only say ‘love you’ in a casual way,” she said. “Being older, he was much more aware of what that meant. And that said a lot.”
In case you missed it: Hayden Panettiere Says “I Was Shocked” After Being Told To Get In Bed With A Famous Actor At the Age of 18
Although Panettiere writes positively about the ‘Gilmore Girls‘ alum in her book, she also reveals that their first breakup became a painful low point. In ‘This Is Me: A Reckoning‘, she says Ventimiglia ended things but took her back a week later after seeing how emotional she became.
Panettiere described that brief reconciliation in raw detail. “One hundred percent, it was only because I was over the toilet, hysterically crying,” she said of their brief reconciliation. “It was like my world had crumbled. It was so out of left field, nothing that big or explosive had happened. Nothing had really gone wrong. Nobody cheated. I remember the look on his face being pure shock at how visceral and massive my negative reaction was, and he immediately took it back.”
Not long after their second breakup, Panettiere met Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko. The two later had an on-again, off-again relationship and welcomed their daughter, Kaya. They ended their relationship in 2018, and Panettiere also explores that chapter in the book. Now, Panettiere says ‘This Is Me: A Reckoning‘ gives her the chance to tell her own story after years of public assumptions.
You might also like to read: “They Really Wrote My Life Into It”: Hayden Panettiere Says ‘Nashville’ Exploited Her Real-Life Struggles With Alcoholism And Broken Family For TV Drama
