Born in Palisades, New York in 1989, Panettiere got her start young; she began modeling at just eight months old, and her first onscreen role came at 11 months for a PlaySkool ad. In 1994, she began acting on One Life To Live, portraying Sarah Roberts for three years. In 1996, she began a run on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light. In 2002, Panettiere joined Ally McBeal for its fairly infamous fifth season, portraying Ally’s unknown daughter who was conceived as a result of a mix-up at the egg bank that Ally had visited in college. In this period, Panettiere began a film career, frequently appearing in Disney projects like A Bug’s Life, Dinosaur, Tiger Cruise, and Ice Princess, in which she starred alongside the late Michelle Trachtenberg.
In 2006, Panettiere began one of her most beloved roles as Claire Bennet in Heroes, a cheerleader who was the subject of the show’s “save the cheerleader, save the world” catchphrase. She appeared in 73 of the show’s 77 episodes. “Outside of work, I was dealing with paparazzi for the first time and my freedom being taken away, basically overnight,” she reflected in an interview with Buzzfeed earlier this year while promoting her memoir This Is Me. “The cast of Heroes really kept me grounded at a very pivotal time in my life.”
After the show concluded in 2010, Panettiere joined the world of Woodsboro for 2011’s Scream 4. In that film, she portrayed Kirby, a character who seemed dead for about 12 years after being left to bleed out in the third act of the film. However, Kirby made her return in 2023’s Scream 6, joining and guiding the new generation of potential Ghostface victims during his romp through New York. In 2012, Panettiere began another series that would enjoy a long run: Nashville. Panettiere starred in 112 of the show’s 124 episodes as Juliette Barnes, an up-and-coming country singer and potential rival to Connie Britton’s Rayna Jaymes. Panettiere’s work on the show earned nominations for a Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, and People’s Choice Awards.
As Panettiere would admit, her life garnered quite a bit of scrutiny in the tabloid press. In 2026, the actor took hold of her own story with the publication of her memoir This Is Me. In the book, she expanded on her history with drugs and alcohol, writing, per People, about her experience taking pills to complete press runs at just 15, and the painful experience of detoxing years later in 2020. She also shared several troubling anecdotes about much older men making sexual advances when she was still just a teen. But Panettiere spoke about the book as a new door opening, saying in her final interview, “I can feel all the exciting possibilities. I feel like I have a lot more life to live.”
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