Neutrogena admits it made Hayden Panettiere 'feel unsupported' as fans revisit fallout

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Neutrogena has broken its silence after backlash over the beauty brand’s past relationship with Hayden Panettiere, saying it understands that the late actress felt unsupported during a difficult period in her life.

The company addressed the controversy on Thursday, August 20, following Panettiere’s death Sunday at 36.

Neutrogena’s response also brought renewed attention to Panettiere’s own account of how her decade-long partnership with the brand ended after she publicly spoke about her experience with postpartum depression.

Neutrogena responds to backlash following Hayden Panettiere's death

“We are deeply saddened by Hayden Panettiere's passing,” Neutrogena said in a statement shared 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 added. 

Neutrogena also said it plans to invest in resources aimed at helping women dealing with postpartum depression.

“Hayden's courage in sharing her challenges helped inspire important conversations and awareness,” the company 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.”

Neutrogena stated it would provide more details about the investment later and added that it had waited to speak because of respect for Panettiere’s family and loved ones.

Hayden Panettiere spoke openly about postpartum depression in a 2015 interview

The backlash stems from comments Panettiere made about the brand relationship, including in her memoir, 'This Is Me: A Reckoning', released in May this year.

The actress had been a global ambassador for Neutrogena for more than a decade.

She had spoken openly about postpartum depression in a 2015 interview on ‘Live! With Kelly and Michael’ while discussing her character Juliette Barnes on ‘Nashville’, who also experienced the condition.

At the time, Panettiere said postpartum depression was “something that I can very much relate to.”

“You don't realize what broad of a spectrum you can really experience that on,” she said, adding that it was something “a lot of women experience. It's something, I think, that needs to be talked about,” she said. “Women need to know that they're not alone, and that it does, you know, heal.”

She also pushed back against the idea that postpartum depression was not real or was simply a matter of hormones.

“It's something that's completely uncontrollable, and it's really painful, and it's really scary -- and, you know, women need a lot of support,” Panettiere said.

Hayden Panettiere claimed her interview comments led to fallout with Neutrogena

More than a decade after that interview, Panettiere revisited the subject during a May appearance on the ‘Jay Shetty Podcast’. 

She said she had not planned to discuss postpartum depression during the 2015 interview.

“I had no intention of, or plan to, talk about postpartum depression. It just came up, and I was just being honest,” she said. “Never for a second did I think that anyone ... cared, that anyone would have a bad reaction to it. It was my truth.”

Panettiere then claimed that her comments affected her relationship with Neutrogena.

“I got that call that Neutrogena wanted to fire me over that,” she said, adding that her representative told her, “That's illegal. You can't do that.”

According to Panettiere, her representative helped her at the time, but she believed she would not be invited back the following year.

“I knew that that was going to be it, that ... I was not going to be invited back the next year,” she said.