Neutrogena finally responds after Hayden Panettiere’s death and backlash over ‘firing’ her

Following Hayden Panettiere’s death, Neutrogena has responded to the backlash surrounding the actress’ claims that the brand wanted to end its long-running partnership after she publicly spoke about her experience with postpartum depression.

Hayden Panettiere died on August 16, aged 36. Her death has since prompted renewed attention on her life and the things she discussed in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, which was published just three months before her death.

One of those stories involved Neutrogena, the skincare brand Panettiere became the face of when she was still a teenager. She had worked with the company for nearly a decade during the height of her career.

Basically, Panettiere said the partnership came with strict expectations about the image she was supposed to maintain, and she later claimed the company wanted to “fire” her after she publicly discussed having postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter, Kaya.

Now, Neutrogena has addressed those claims following the backlash. This comes after shares in its parent company, Kenvue, fell earlier this week amid calls from people to boycott the skincare brand.

Neutrogena says it ‘made her feel unsupported’

 

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Neutrogena issued a statement following Panettiere’s death, saying it was “deeply saddened” by her passing.

“We are deeply saddened by Hayden Panettiere’s passing,” the company said in a statement posted on Instagram.

“For more than a decade, Hayden was a valued member of our Neutrogena community. We are proud to have partnered with her and understand that we made her feel unsupported during a very difficult time. This is not what Neutrogena stands for or who we want to be.”

The company also acknowledged Panettiere’s decision to speak publicly about her struggles. “Hayden’s courage in sharing her challenges helped inspire important conversations and awareness,” Neutrogena said.

It then said, “We are making a significant investment to a long-standing community health partner to help give more women access to the support they need, including care for postpartum depression. We will share more details with this community when plans are in place.”

The statement came after loads of people online called for a boycott of Neutrogena following Panettiere’s death and her claims about what happened with the brand.

Hayden said Neutrogena wanted to ‘fire’ her after she spoke about postpartum depression

Panettiere had spoken about the alleged fallout with Neutrogena both in her memoir and while promoting the book. She said the issue came after she spoke publicly about her postpartum depression on Live with Kelly and Michael in 2015, less than a year after giving birth to Kaya.

Speaking on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, Panettiere said she never expected talking honestly about what she had gone through to cause a problem with the company.

“And of all the things that they would fire me over, this was the last thing that I thought they would ever fire me over,” she said. “I was just being honest. And never for a second did I think that anyone would have a bad reaction to it. It was my truth.”

She then recalled, “So when I got that call that Neutrogena wanted to fire me over that, my representative at the time said, ‘That’s illegal. You can’t do that.’”

Panettiere said her representative managed to prevent the situation from ending immediately, but she believed the partnership was effectively finished. Panettiere also claimed that she did not hear from anyone at the company after that.

In her memoir, Panettiere also explained how much the Neutrogena image shaped her life. She said she had to be careful about what she wore and how she behaved in public.

“I started walking through my life playing the role of Hayden Panettiere, Neutrogena Girl,” she wrote.

She then added that the pressure became “a high standard impossible to uphold.”

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Featured image credit: Paramount Pictures/Neutrogena.