Since Hayden Panettiere’s death at 36 on Aug. 16, fans have been revisiting the actress’s life in public — from her childhood roles and Heroes fame to her candid discussions of addiction, motherhood, and postpartum depression.
One allegation from the final months of her life is now drawing particular outrage.
While promoting her 2026 memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, Panettiere claimed that Neutrogena tried to end its longtime partnership with her after she publicly discussed experiencing postpartum depression. Her representative prevented the brand from immediately dropping her, she said, but her contract was not renewed the following year.
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Fans are turning their anger into calls for a boycott.
A Reddit post targeting Neutrogena has received more than 7,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments, while many other X and TikTok posts accuse the company of punishing Panettiere for speaking candidly about her mental health. Neutrogena’s own social media accounts are also being flooded with comments from people promising to stop buying its products.
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What did Panettiere say about her Neutrogena contract?
The actress began appearing in Neutrogena advertisements in the mid-2000s, eventually becoming closely associated with the brand’s cleansers and acne products.
Then, in September 2015, less than a year after giving birth to her daughter, Kaya, Panettiere appeared on Live with Kelly and Michael. During the interview, she said she could relate to her Nashville character’s struggle with postpartum depression.
“There’s a lot of misunderstanding,” she told the hosts, describing the condition as painful and frightening. “Women need a lot of support.”
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Panettiere later explained that she had not arrived at the interview planning to discuss her own mental health. The subject came up, and she answered honestly. However, Panettiere later said that those comments put her relationship with Neutrogena in jeopardy.
During a May appearance on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, Panettiere said she received a call informing her that the company wanted to fire her for violating a morals clause in her contract.
“Of all the things that they would fire me over, this was the last thing I thought they would fire me over,” she said.
Her representative pushed back, Panettiere recalled, preventing Neutrogena from immediately ending the agreement. But she said she understood that the relationship was effectively over, and that the company did not renew her contract the following year.
What hurt most, Panettiere said, was how quietly the decade-long partnership ended. Panettiere recalled receiving no goodbye or acknowledgment from the people she had worked with at the company.
“I remember that really breaking my heart,” she told Shetty.
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Panettiere repeated the allegation in her memoir and in a May interview with The Hollywood Reporter. By telling the story publicly, she hoped other companies would think twice before treating someone similarly.
Neutrogena has not discussed Panettiere’s claims or publicly explained why its partnership with the actress ended. The company also did not respond to requests for comment from multiple outlets when the allegations first attracted attention in May.
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After Panettiere’s death, the anger has spread well beyond angry X posts and compilation videos on TikTok.
As boycott calls continue to flood social media, shares of Neutrogena parent company Kenvue — which also owns Tylenol, Band-Aid, and Aveeno — fell more than 2 percent on Monday, giving the backlash even more momentum.
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