Hayden Panetierre made a big announcement about her love life prior to the release of her upcoming memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning” (Grand Central Publishing).
The 36-year-old actor publicly came out as bisexual in an interview with US Weekly published Wednesday.
It’s something she said she has kept under wraps for years, despite being “much more into women” than men while she was growing up.
“The first time it even crossed my mind to touch on this subject was while I was in the process of writing this book,” Panetierre admitted to the magazine.
Panetierre, known for her roles on “Heroes” and “Nashville” as well as her previous engagement once upon a time to former heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko, said that she’s chosen to “be completely brutally honest about” her sexuality and said she was never able to do so before “because it was just never the right time.”
She said that when she was younger, “no one ever encouraged me to just be myself, and then it came, the period of time, where it felt like people coming out, especially women coming out, and saying that they were bisexual, or liked girls, was a fad.”
Panetierre feared that even if she was truthful about her attraction to women, she would be accused of “jumping on the bandwagon.”
She said “the fear of not being perfect, and what my team was going to think about it, what the public’s opinion was going to be about it” kept her from being open about her sexuality.
Her fame added another level of difficulty to coming out as bisexual.
“It was always scary, because my life, I mean, there were paparazzi always outside, waiting for me outside, to follow me everywhere,” she said. “I had very little privacy, and I mean, I have dated women. It started at a very, very young age.”
Panetierre said making the announcement was a long time coming.
“I wanted to make sure that I really sat down and chose my words carefully and was able to tell my story in an honest way, that people understood. On one hand, it’s sad that I had to wait till I was 36 years old to share that part of me, but better late than never, right?”
“This Is Me: A Reckoning” will be published on May 19.