Hayden Panettiere is well aware that her hotel fight with ex Brian Hickerson was not her best moment.
“It wasn’t my best behavior, it wasn’t anyone’s best behavior,” the 32-year-old actress said in an interview published Wednesday.
The altercation took place outside the Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles, with Panettiere trying to end a fight between her on-again, off-again boyfriend, 33, and other clients.
“It wasn’t as insane as it was made to look, and everyone was fine,” the “Nashville” alum told the magazine.
Panettiere further provided insight into her decision to reconnect with Hickerson, who was arrested in 2019 on charges of domestic violence. Although the case was later dismissed, he was charged again in 2020 and pleaded not guilty to two offenses of injuring a partner.
“It’s not all right, and I want to make sure everyone knows that,” the “Heroes” alum told People of Hickerson’s past behavior. “But I’m open to people who are willing to seek help and make it right.”
Panettiere noted that the sales director “went to the treatment and took his time,” adding, “I try to live in a place of forgiveness.”
She explained that this has given her “a lot of inner peace.”
When the Golden Globe nominee began dating Hickerson in 2018, she was going through a “very dark time” in her life.
“A lot of women are going through what I’ve been through, and I want people to know it’s okay to ask for help,” she told the magazine. “I want to make sure everyone knows that everyone who goes through something like this is on their own journey. No two things are exactly the same.”
Panettiere was addicted to alcohol and opioids at the time, and she said her “cycle of self-destruction” led her to send daughter Kaya, now 7, to father Wladimir Klitschko in Ukraine.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” she admitted. “But I wanted to be a good mom to her — and sometimes that means I have to let them go.”