Hayden Panettiere Fans Vow to Boycott Neutrogena After Late Actress’ Claim About ‘Cancelled’ Contract

Fans of Hayden Panettiere are once again vowing to boycott beauty brand Neutrogena after the star’s sudden death.

“I will not buy from them ever again! They should have been supporting her and other women, not taking away help,” one Reddit user wrote on Monday, August 17, one day after the Heroes and Nashville alum died at the age of 36. The fresh backlash stems from Panettiere’s May memoir, in which she claimed that Neutrogena “cancelled” her “long-standing contract” due to her battle with postpartum depression.

The brand faced initial backlash from Panettiere fans upon the release of the memoir, titled This Is Me: A Reckoning, but did not publicly address the criticism at the time.

Us has reached out to a Neutrogena representative for comment.

New consumer backlash has also hit the brand’s Threads account, with social media users now responding to a post shared by Neutrogena in 2023 that read, “Friends don’t let friends go to bed without removing their makeup.”

One person responded on Sunday, August 16, “Friends also don’t try to fire employees for talking openly about postpartum depression but apparently this brand does.” Another social media user responded, “Hayden deserved better. Women deserve better. I’m done supporting Neutrogena.”

Panettiere’s Neutrogena claim was raised in her book amid the actress detailing mental health issues experienced after welcoming daughter Kaya in 2011, whom she shared with ex Wladimir Klitschko. She wrote about Nashville producers deciding to write her character out of production temporarily, before questioning the beauty brand’s decision to sever ties completely.

“The producers had no choice but to write me out of the script temporarily — something that killed me because I’d always prided myself on my professionalism — and I issued a statement about where I was going and why,” Panettiere wrote. “My fans and the press were hugely sympathetic — and I’ll always be grateful for that — but a part of my career I’d come to depend on suffered. Neutrogena canceled my long-standing contract, and it was yet another blow in a year that had given almost nothing else.”

Panettiere died suddenly in Greenville, South Carolina, on Sunday. Her father, Skip, confirmed the news to Us at the time through a representative for his daughter. “It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden. She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her — and to the millions who watched her onscreen,” Skip said in a statement. “We ask for privacy as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss.”

In the aftermath of her death, which remains under investigation with no cause or manner confirmed at the time of publication, a filmmaker who worked with Panettiere on her 2025 horror-comedy A Breed Apart claimed that she was “not OK” while working on set.

“I had met Hayden about 10 years before that and I knew that she was insanely talented, so when she signed on to do this picture that we were shooting, I was psyched,” director Griff Furst began in an Instagram video shared on Monday. “I really wanted to work with her. So I’m on set, and I get word from the movie’s security team who picked her up from the airport that something was off.

Furst, 44, further explained, “I didn’t think much about it, and so I left set and I walked over to greet her and her boyfriend Brian [Hickerson]. He opened the door. Hayden was incredibly sweet and gracious and excited to work, but she was not OK.”

A Tuesday, August 18, police report by the Greenville City Police Department, obtained by Us, stated that officials spoke with Panettiere’s ex-boyfriend Hickerson, 37, and his brother, Zach Hickerson, at an apartment complex in Greenville on the day of her passing.

“After EMS officially declared Hayden deceased, I escorted Zach and Brian out of the apartment,” the police report stated about Sunday. “I observed Zach to be very emotional while EMS were working on Hayden. Brian did not become emotional until EMS declared her officially deceased.”

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