A “horrible woman” is how the internet described Hayden Panettiere’s mother, Lesley Vogel, for the way she spoke about her daughter’s tragic passing.
Fans were furious about Vogel’s words this week, claiming the mother was still refusing to take accountability for pushing her daughter into showbiz even before she could speak and not protecting her from the pressures of early fame.
“She slammed that door pretty hard in my face,” Panettiere once said about her estranged mom.
A “horrible woman” is how the internet described Hayden Panettiere’s mother, Lesley Vogel, after an interview this week
Days after the sudden passing of Hayden Panettiere on August 16, her estranged mother Lesley Vogel gave a phone interview with NBC News saying her daughter “was an amazingly talented person in so many departments.”
An actress herself, Vogel talked about how “young people who grow up in the entertainment industry” might “sadly find the wrong path.”
“I think it becomes very difficult to be true to yourself, and I think Hayden sadly lost her way, and I wish it were different. I wish she had stayed true to herself because she had many incredible attributes,” she said during the Tuesday interview.
Netizens felt her words were odd for a grieving mother, saying, “What a cold statement to make about your daughter. Her mom is the one who put her in the business and exploited her. F*** this lady.”
“She’s just mad she doesn’t get her money anymore. Awful person,” another said.
Many claimed that Vogel’s actions have always been questionable, having pushed her daughter in front of the camera even before she could talk.
“Imagine putting your daughter to work before she could even speak, managing her career throughout her childhood, pressuring her to audition and shaming her when she didn’t do well, benefiting financially from that career, blaming her for what it cost your family, and then speaking about the consequences as though you had nothing to do with them,” one X user wrote.
Vogel was indeed Panettiere’s manager and put her daughter in a commercial when she was just a few months old.
Vogel allegedly superglued a fallen tooth back into her daughter’s mouth so she wouldn’t lose a job
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
As a child, Panettiere has appeared in various advertisements and shows, all because of her “perfectionist” mother.
On one occasion, Vogel allegedly superglued a fallen tooth back into her daughter’s mouth so she wouldn’t lose a job, Panettiere wrote in her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, released in May this year.
There was no doubt that Panettiere was a talented child and could cry or scream on cue. And she felt “empowered” and “happy” when she got praises. But “it was also all wrapped up in pleasing my mom.”
“Her opinions were the most important to me. I associated praise with love. So being praised felt like being loved,” she said in one of her past interviews with The Independent.
Recalling one childhood experience in her memoir, Panettiere said she froze and couldn’t perform during an audition for a Kodak ad at the age of four.
“[My mother] was so angry that my best option was to hide under my bed, her lower jaw migrated a few centimeters forward,” the actress wrote in her memoir.
Vogel has even explained to her daughter from a young age that the money she made was what paid for the family’s expenses, including cars and phone bills. This made her struggle to feel like “the kid” in the family, especially after her family moved into an apartment bought for her when she was 16.
Panettiere decided to find a new manager at the age of 19 because she desperately wanted Vogel to just be her mom
Hayden Panettiere says her mom’s response to ending their business relationship broke her heart. She says her mom just wanted the money.
pic.twitter.com/sP0pKFM20e— ّ (@geokonic) August 18, 2026
After years of pressure from her mother, Panettiere decided it was time to have another manager at the age of 19.
She was working on the show Heroes when she asked her mother to meet in her trailer and begged her to just be her mom, not her manager.
“All I wanted was a dynamic that didn’t involve contracts, producers, boho tops, or drinking wine at industry parties,” she wrote.
Their conversation concluded when Vogel “picked up her purse, clenched her jaw, and looked straight at [her].”
“You owe me,” she answered. Then she turned around and walked out of my trailer,” Panettiere wrote. “ … I knew I’d done the right thing, but I sensed something in me had d*ed.”
The late actress said she wasn’t surprised by her mother’s reaction but found it “heartbreaking” that her mother wasn’t interested in having a “normal relationship” with her.
Vogel, who once described her daughter as someone who “does not want to be saved,” cut all communication with Panettiere last year, claiming their relationship “had broken down altogether.”
When Panettiere was promoting her memoir earlier this year, her mother claimed she was cooking up “drama” to “sell books.”
“After 20 years of trauma, chaos, add*ctions, accusations, I felt I had no other option but to choose no contact,” Vogel told the Daily Mail in May. “ … There will forever be a lingering hope that she will find her own path to inner peace.”
Vogel claimed earlier this year that Panettiere was cooking up “drama” to “sell books”
Panettiere had acknowledged her mother’s statements about her book release and said she was still leaving “that door cracked open” to possibly reconcile with Vogel.
“Because who doesn’t want a relationship with their mother? But she slammed that door pretty hard in my face,” she said in one TV interview.
During Vogel’s phone interview with NBC News this week, the mother said she hadn’t spoke to her daughter since last October, and that was a “choice” she made for “specific reasons.”
It was “certainly not for lack of care, concern, love,” she said.
Panettiere’s parents apparently tried to get rid of Brian Hickerson from her life, Vogel said
Hollywood To You/Star Max/GC Images
Vogel also spoke about Panettiere’s on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson, who was with the actress when she was pronounced deceased inside a South Carolina apartment.
Hickerson and Panettiere have had a turbulent relationship, where he has physically attacked her on multiple occasions and even served jailed time over one 2021 incident.
“This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her de*th and that was Brian Hickerson,” Vogel said.
The mother said Hickerson and Panettiere have a lot of history together, where he “enabled” the Nashvilla star “many times.”
“This is why her father and I had been concerned for a long time about him,” she added.
While talking about Panettiere’s loss, Vogel said during the Tuesday interview that both her children were “at peace.”
“I just feel that she’s with her brother and they’re at peace,” she added, referring to her younger son Jansen who lost his life at the age of 28 in 2023.
While alive, Panettiere once said her mother blamed her for not being able to spend time with her son.
“You’re the reason why I’m missing my son growing up,” she recalled her mother saying during an On Purpose with Jay Shetty appearance in May.
“That was a punch in the gut,” the late actress said at the time, noting how she was grateful for her career but “never asked for it.”
“With a mother like that, who needs enemies,” one commented online
