Neutrogena responds after Hayden Panettiere fans renew call for boycott
This past May, Hayden Panettiere alleged Neutrogena tried to fire her in 2015 for speaking about her struggle with postpartum depression. Following the actor's death, fans are renewing their calls to boycott the skincare company.
Panettiere alleged Neutrogena contract was severed in 2015 after she spoke about postpartum depression
Helen Surgenor · CBC News
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A controversy that's been simmering around skincare company Neutrogena since May is again boiling over following the death of Hayden Panettiere.
The actor, who played a cheerleader on Heroes and Bring it On: All or Nothing and a country superstar on Nashville, was also a global brand ambassador for Neutrogena between 2005 and 2015.
In late 2014, she gave birth to a baby girl, and in 2015 appeared on the TV talk show Live with Kelly and Michael, where she spoke openly about her struggle with postpartum depression.
Shortly after that, her longtime partnership with Neutrogena ended.
While speaking to Jay Shetty on his podcast On Purpose this past May, Panettiere alleged that Neutrogena had tried to fire her for those 2015 comments by invoking her contract's morality clause.
"My representative at the time said, 'That's illegal, you can't do that,' and even though... she saved the day that year, I knew that ... I was not going to be invited back [to represent Neutrogena] the next year."
WATCH | Tributes pour in for Hayden Panettiere after her death at 36:
Tributes pour in for Hayden Panettiere after her death at 36
August 17|
Duration 2:06
Fans and co-stars mourned the death of 36-year-old actor Hayden Panettiere, best known for roles in Heroes and Nashville. Police are investigating the cause of her death, but said there are no signs of foul play.Panettiere said she never heard from anybody at the company after that incident in 2015.
"It made me realize and understand exactly what people thought of women who experience postpartum depression and how misunderstood it is, how much stigma there is around it," she told Shetty.
CBC News has reached out to Neutrogena's parent company, Kenvue, to ask for more details about why it did not renew its partnership with Panettiere, but received no response.
Panettiere gave full custody of her daughter Kaya to her ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko in 2018, when she was struggling with addiction and postpartum depression.
Fan boycott
Fans organized a boycott against Neutrogena after that podcast episode was released. One beauty influencer went so far as to use the audio from the podcast in a get-ready-with-me-style video captioned "Neutrogena hates women!"
Following Panettiere's death on Sunday, fans are making their wrath known again.
For the past three days, they have been flooding Neutrogena's Instagram and Threads accounts calling for the company to publicly address the allegation.
"Hey so you should probably address the fact that you fired Hayden Panettiere after she spoke out about her battles with post partum depression … and now she’s dead," user kelseycombe wrote on Threads. That post got more than 70,000 likes.
"So @neutrogena wanna tell us what’s wrong with post partum depression?" reads the top comment in response to an ad Neutrogena posted on Instagram three days ago.
Another popular post on Reddit argued, "What Neutrogena did to Hayden deserves a boycott."
Panettiere's daughter Kaya is now 11 years old.
On Tuesday, Klitschko said in a statement online, "I will always speak of her mother with respect... Young and talented people like Hayden should not leave this world so soon."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen Surgenor is a producer for CBC News based in Toronto, currently working for the entertainment unit. She spent years waking up before dawn to make the daily news podcast World Report. She has reported in Alberta, Iqaluit and Barbados. You can reach her at helen.surgenor@cbc.ca.
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