Drugs at their fingertips, intense pressure: Why child stars fall into addiction
Hayden Panettiere was 16 when drugs first arrived in her life in Hollywood. Ahead of a red carpet event for the hit series Heroes, she has said someone on her team handed her a pill to help amp up her energy.
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Key Facts
- Fact 1: Hayden Panettiere was 16 when drugs first arrived in her life in Hollywood.
- Fact 2: The star's sudden death at the age of 36 has placed a renewed focus on her struggles with mental health and substance abuse, and re-ignited a discussion about the pressures of Hollywood on child stars.
- Fact 3: Panettiere's death comes after she published a memoir where she discussed at length her issues with addiction, her postpartum depression and the loss of her 28-year-old brother.
- Fact 4: "Her entire life from the beginning was centred in the intense public spotlight, and this didn't give Hayden much in the way of a respite," said Moyers, who has been in recovery from an addiction since 1989.
Hayden Panettiere was 16 when drugs first arrived in her life in Hollywood. Ahead of a red carpet event for the hit series Heroes, she has said someone on her team handed her a pill to help amp up her energy.
The hit sci-fi NBC series had catapulted the teen into a household name - and that brought with it intense pressure and exhaustion she says felt overwhelming. "Within minutes, a wave of energy washed over me, like I'd just woken up from the most refreshing night's sleep of my life," Panettiere wrote about that pill in her memoir, which was released just months before her death. She called it "the gateway drug that ushered me toward the good of pharmaceuticals and the downfall of addiction".
(Original synthesis pending human/AI review — generated by the stub provider by selecting real sentences from the source material, not by writing new analysis or commentary.)
Original source: BBC News World
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