If Ashe can help 23-year-old Shelton earn his first career win over Alcaraz, there is guaranteed to be an American player in the final.

Home stars reaching the men’s semi-finals has not been uncommon this century, but only Taylor Fritz has reached the final – two years ago when he lost to Jannik Sinner – since Roddick was beaten by Roger Federer in the 2006 final.

Tiafoe, who is seeded 11th, lost to Fritz in another all-American semi-final and was also eliminated by Alcaraz at the same stage in 2022.

Now the 28-year-old is aiming for a third opportunity to reach his first Grand Slam final.

Tiafoe reached the Cincinnati final last month and, thriving off the energy of the New York crowd, has maintained his momentum.

On what it is like to receive such support, he said: “It’s an out-of-body experience, no question. No real explaining that type of feeling.

“It’s like you’re not even touching the ground at one point. Energy is so high, and it seems like the level of play matches that.”

While Tiafoe is one of the sport’s great entertainers, 22-year-old Michelsen is more understated.

The world number 46 admits he has been happy to fly “under the radar” at Flushing Meadows while the likes of Tiafoe, Shelton, Fritz and Tommy Paul soak up the attention.

But earning a place in a Grand Slam quarter-final for the first time, and not dropping a set on his way, means Michelsen will find himself under the spotlight on Ashe.

“First, second, third rounds, all matches I’m feeling nerves. It’s a human experience,” he said.

“But it’s just about going out there and managing them to the best of my ability. I feel like I’ve done that very well.”

Man Utd fans are set to protest against the club’s treatment of season-ticket holders amid the ticket-touting operation fiasco

Manchester United fans are set to protest against the club’s controversial operation to tackle ticket touting before facing Manchester City on Sunday afternoon.

United received widespread backlash from some of their most loyal supporters in July following the launch of an investigation into touting, which caught some innocent fans in the crossfire.

The club described their operation to address touting as “successful”, but recognised that “some innocent supporters may have been affected” and apologised for the inconvenience during the process.

The Manchester Evening News spoke to several angry United season ticket holders across the summer following emails from the club alleging they had broken ticketing terms and conditions.

The fiasco brought together the various United fan groups, who took the unprecedented step of releasing a joint statement condemning the operation and demanding transparency from the club.

Now, United supporter group The 1958 have announced they will protest against the ‘season ticket banning crackdown’ before the Manchester derby, declaring that ‘a line has been crossed’.

A spokesman confirmed: “Manchester United supporter groups are being called upon to all stand together following reports of bans and season ticket sanctions without clear and compelling evidence always being presented.

“For generations, match-going Reds have given their time, money and loyalty to Manchester United, home and away. That loyalty deserves to be treated with respect.”

The 1958 have urged supporters to gather peacefully outside The Bishop Blaize pub near Old Trafford in a show of unity from 3pm on Sunday.

The spokesperson added: “This is not about one group or one individual. It is about how Manchester United treats its match-going supporters. It may not affect you today, it may not next time but that day is coming for all of us.

“ALL REDS. ALL GROUPS. ONE VOICE. SHOW THE EVIDENCE. LIFT THE BANS.

“Supporters are now facing serious sanctions which can remove their right to attend matches. We believe nobody should face such action without being told clearly what they are accused of and being shown the evidence used to justify it.

“This goes beyond individual supporters or supporter groups. If this approach is allowed to stand, it should concern every match-going Red.

“Whatever differences have existed between supporter groups in the past, this is a time to put them aside. A call has gone out for Manchester United supporter groups, Fans’ Forum representatives, supporters’ clubs and independent fan organisations to stand together on a simple principle:

“If there is clear, substantive evidence of serious wrongdoing or organised ticket touting, show it. No loyal supporter should be treated as guilty without being given a fair opportunity to understand and challenge the case against them.”

Over the years, I’ve accumulated various Carl Friedrik luggage items, including the carry-on hybrid in silver and tan, the Granville weekender in chestnut, and the compact weekender in nubuck. Durable, stylish and designed for ease while on the go, this trio has travelled with me around the world, from Marrakech to Vietnam and Australia.

Track hero Amy Hunt says she intends to ‘hibernate for eight weeks’ to celebrate her four gold medals at the European Championships in Birmingham.

But first Hunt, who once described herself as a ‘track goddess’, is getting straight back to work this week as she has a few weeks left of the Diamond League season.

The 24-year-old Cambridge University graduate toasted her haul with a glass of champagne on Sunday night alongside her coach Marco Airale. 

Hunt claimed the 100m and 200m golds before being part of winning teams in the women’s and mixed 4x100m relays. 

She told Sky Sports News: ‘It’s important to celebrate the wins when they happen and live in the moment. You don’t win four golds often. I had a little glass of champagne with my coach last night. It’s straight back to work at the end of the week.

‘It’s been euphoric. I’ve been living in dreamland this whole week, especially at home with great crowd support. I have such a pride in competing for Great Britain on a Great British stage. We really put the great in Great Britain.

The self-proclaimed ‘track goddess’ won four gold medals at the European Championships 

‘I thought there was a chance. Any time you line up at a race, you have to believe you’ll win no matter what. It’s a very dog eat dog world so you have to have that confidence on the start line. I was lucky I got to cap off the relays with incredible people.’

‘We were the sprint nation at this Championships. We cleaned up nearly every medal at the sprints. We’re just so competitive and want it so badly. We hold our weight ona  global stage – we go toe-to-toe with the Americans. It’s great to see that programme come together. 

‘If you heard our coahces’ team speeches, you’d want to go to war for them too. Our instructions for the relay were to go out there and break their hearts! It definitely fires you up and makes you ready to go.’

She added: ‘My way of switching off is spending time with my family. I’m so lucky that I train out of Italy in Padova but I don’t get to see my family too often. 

‘Relaxing is spending time at home with my dog and sister, who just qualified as a nurse two days ago. I’ve got a few holidays booked. We’ve got a month left on the Diamond League Circuit – I’ve got the World Ultimate Championships in Budapest at the end of September. 

‘My coach gives us eight weeks off – he’s very benevolent. I have eight weeks of hibernation!’ 

Hunt picked up gold alongside Dina Asher-Smith, one of her heroes, in the women’s 4x 100m relay. 

Thanks to that triumph, Asher-Smith became the joint-most successful athlete in European Championships history. She has seven golds, two silvers, and a bronze. 

Hunt, 24, said she ‘wanted it all’ at the start of the week – and she is going home with it!  

Hunt added: ‘Creating history together as two young women on a global stage is incredible. Who gets to do that? 

‘Dina is someone who I’ve looked up to my whole career. Not just the way she’s amazingly quick and a world champion, but the way she handles herself and she was one of the first women to do a very academic degree and chase that life off the track and still be fabulous on the track. She’s a role model. 

‘To help her become a big part of history is amazing.’

On now being a role model herself, she added: ‘It’s crazy to me. I’ve been helped along my way by so many successful and amazing and gorgeous and fast women so to be in the same conversations is amazing. 

‘You can be soft and be strong, you can be great on the track and in the classroom, be a mother and have a successful career, have everything you’ve ever dreamed of. 

‘There’s no world where you need to put limits on yourself. Anything you set your mind to you can achieve.’

The Cambridge University graduate’s bubbly personality has endeared her to fans and brands alike, with sponsors reportedly queueing up to join forces with the ‘relatable’ star.

Her Instagram page, followed by 142,000 people, showcases her love of culture and literature as well as her exploits on the track, which have hit new heights since her breakthrough World Championship 200m gold in Tokyo last year.

She was not shy when broadcasting her aim to become the fastest woman in Europe, channelling her love of High School Musical when stating ‘I want it all’ at the start of the week.

The Newark athlete, who went to the same school in Grantham as Margaret Thatcher, has only bolstered her reputation with her feats.

Three of the five teenage boys killed in a head-on crash have been pictured for the first time after police revealed gangs of youths have been ‘trying to outdo each other’ online.

The youngsters were travelling southbound on the northbound carriageway of the M9 motorway in County Kildare yesterday morning when they smashed into another vehicle.

The collision left four others, including a seven-year-old child, seriously injured.

Kamil Pustowski, Joe Carthy, Jeremy O’Brien, Alex McCarthy and Jack Kennedy, who are believed to be aged between 14 and 16, allegedly stole the BMW they were travelling in.

Gardai are attempting to verify whether the boys, who were reportedly wearing balaclavas or masks, are part of the ‘Lucky Dip’ burglary and car theft gang in Dublin. 

Post-mortem examinations will soon be carried out to establish a cause of death.

Three women, two in their 30s and one in her 20s, and a seven-year-old child were rushed to hospital, where they remain in serious or critical condition. 

They are understood to be members of the same family and were travelling in a Hyundai towards Dublin Airport when their car was struck near junction three at around 3am. 

Joey Carthy also died in the crash on the M9 motorway

Jeremy O’Brien was one of five teenagers to lose his life in the collision 

Advertisement

The five teenage boys were driving southbound on the northbound carriageway of the M9 motorway in County Kildare and crashed into another vehicle near junction three

The Garda Representative Association (GRA) said its members were ‘all in shock’ after the ‘horrific incident’. 

GRA vice-president John Joe O’Connell said: ‘This involved a stolen BMW that drove – trying to evade gardaí – drove the wrong way down the M9 and then a head-on collision occurred with this car of a family heading to Dublin Airport on holidays for a few days.’

Mr O’Connell explained the BMW had earlier failed to stop for gardaí and that it was his understanding that an instruction was given not to pursue the vehicle as it travelled the wrong way down the M9.

Asked if this was standard procedure, he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland radio programme: ‘It would be standard practice, and the command and control centre would be dictating what happens in a live environment – but the members in the cars have to make a split-second decision.’

Mr O’Connell said there were ‘numerous gangs’ of boys and young men ‘trying to outdo each other’ in social media videos depicting interactions with Gardaí, pursuits and wrong-way driving.

‘Our members are not going to follow down that route – we’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, that way,’ he said. 

The Kildare-based representative said the GRA did not ‘know what the exact answer is’ to address the problem, but added: ‘There’s not one member of An Garda Síochána trained in pursuit – never mind in dealing with cars going down the wrong way.’

Mr O’Connell said gardaí also face internal sanctions, discipline and possible criminal offences when they decide to chase in pursuits. He said garda cars have also been rammed by stolen vehicles.

Police said a car was travelling on the M9 in the wrong direction in Co Kildare before it smashed into another vehicle at junction 3 at around 3am on Sunday. Pictured: The scene on the M9 northbound

A forensic collision examination will take place while police investigate the circumstances of the head-on crash

Mr O’Connell said there was a need to ‘look at the sentences’ when these cases come before the courts, as he criticised those partaking in wrong-way driving as ‘playing Russian roulette with their lives and everyone else’s lives’.

He urged parents to talk to their sons about the potential consequences of getting into a stolen car ‘for the craic and the clicks’.

Friends and family have paid tribute to the five dead teenagers, who were described as ‘angels’. 

In a social media post, a cousin of Joe Carthy and Alex McCarthy said: ‘Rest in peace to my two cousins Alex and Joey. 

‘May you get a best bed in heaven, watch over your mother and father and brothers and sisters at this hard time. Left away to soon.’

In a separate post, she added: ‘God give your family the strength to get through this difficult time.’ 

Sharing pictures of Carthy wearing a balaclava, another cousin said: ‘Never in a million years would I ever (have) thought it would come to this Joe. 

‘The thought of us never seeing you again. No matter where you were, you always put a smile on anyone’s face. Forever 15, my cousin.’ 

Meanwhile, a family friend said of Carthy: ‘Only a baby with his whole life ahead of him, most mannered little boy you were Joey.

‘Too good for this big cruel world, watch over my James he’s heartbroken over you. Your poor father and mother, Joey. 

‘Please God give them this strength to get through this. Rest easy champ.’

A friend of Kamil Pustowski wrote: ‘My heart is broken, you’re gonna be missed so much by everyone.  Rest in paradise, God is going to give you the best bed up there.’

A cousin of Jeremy O’Brien said: ‘RIP to my cousin. (He) was like a brother. (May) God give you the bed in heaven, you’ll be missed.’ 

Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly has described the head-on collision between junctions 3 and 4 as ‘horrific’ and warned that ‘in some cases’ vehicles are being driven on the wrong side of motorways for social media likes.

The previous weekend, nine people were injured in a head-on collision on the M50 in Dublin with a car travelling in the wrong direction on the motorway.

Downing Street declined to say “at this stage” whether Andy Burnham was considering an inquiry into Arday’s death, reiterating that it was “a moment for reflection”, and that it was right for “the usual processes” like an inquest, to conclude.

Sir James Cleverly said he was angry with the what happened to Arday, and the university establishment – not just Cambridge – should have “done the robust due diligence and checking that should happen with any senior academic appointment”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme on Monday, the shadow housing secretary said he felt Arday was used as “bragging rights by some universities”, and that people spoke of his “age and his ethnicity rather than his talent”.

“I think it was part of the reason that he was lifted so high so quickly and then when the scrutiny did come – external to the universities – his reputation had so far to fall. I think it was unfair on him and I think it’s been a terrible, terrible situation.”

Sir James – who was Britain’s first black home secretary and foreign secretary – said much of the coverage surrounding Arday was “quite possibly” motivated by racism, but that the questions over plagiarism were legitimate, regardless of motivation.

Meanwhile, when housing minister Matthew Pennycook, was questioned over whether the press behaved poorly, he echoed comments by the prime minister that it was not the time to “rush to judgement on this”.

“I do think the events leading up to his death raised questions about duty of care and the nature of modern media scrutiny, but I don’t think the time is now to get into a debate about those, I certainly don’t intend to sit here and opine on them myself,” he said.

Pennycook added that it was a time to reflect and “think compassionately about how we got to this situation, which is a desperately, desperately sad one”.

The row first erupted after another academic – self-defined “race realist” Nathan Cofnas, who was sacked from his Cambridge role in 2024 – said he found numerous instances of plagiarism in the professor’s work.

Cofnas’s post had been terminated amid a backlash to his view that under a true meritocracy black people would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment”.

Cambridge had celebrated Arday’s appointment as a young black professor, one of a tiny and visible minority in academia. Only 1% of professors in UK universities are black, making each appointment hugely significant.

A vigil organised by the group Stand Up To Racism is set to take place on Monday evening in Trafalgar Square.

On Sunday, more than 200 people attended a vigil at Cambridge that was organised by Arday’s postdoctoral students.

By PHILLIP NIETO, US POLITICAL REPORTER

Published: 13:00 BST, 17 August 2026 | Updated: 13:15 BST, 17 August 2026

Donald Trump threatened to ‘bomb the s***’ out of Oman if it continues negotiations with Iran without American approval as the ceasefire with Tehran nears its expiration.

Oman, a major US defense ally in the Middle East, is currently negotiating with Iran over a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by placing the narrow waterway, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes, under joint control. 

Trump has previously stated that Iran will not be allowed to control the waterway by charging levies or taxes from US-backed oil tankers. 

The President issued a dire warning on Monday morning during a Fox News interview if Oman moves forward with its negotiations: ‘If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s*** out of them.’ 

Advertisement

The Strait of Hormuz has been shut since Iran closed it after US and Israeli airstrikes in late February. The strait’s reopening remains a key sticking point in peace talks.

Oman has a history of serving as a friendly mediator between the White House and the Iranian regime. 

The country helped broker the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and has acted as a US defense partner in the Middle East since 1980.

Trump’s threats against his own ally come as the 60-day US-Iran ceasefire is set to expire today, raising fears of renewed fighting that could further destabilize the region and disrupt global oil supplies.  

Advertisement

Oman, a major US defense ally in the Middle East, is currently negotiating with Iran over a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by placing the narrow waterway under joint control

Trump’s threats against his own ally come as the 60-day US-Iran ceasefire is set to expire today, raising fears of renewed fighting that could further destabilize the region and disrupt global oil supplies

Advertisement

An oil tanker burns after being hit by an Iranian strike in the ship-to-ship transfer zone at Khor al-Zubair port near Basra, Iraq, late Wednesday, March 11

Trump has previously stated that Iran will not be allowed to control the waterway by charging levies or taxes from US-backed oil tankers

Trump’s Monday morning warning to attack Oman is not the first time the president has threatened the US Middle Eastern ally. 

Back in May during a cabinet meeting, a reporter asked Trump whether he was comfortable with Oman jointly controlling the strait with Tehran.

Advertisement

‘The strait will be open to everybody,’ Trump said before being asked who would control it. ‘Nobody is going to control it… We will watch over it.’

Trump then turned his attention back to Oman, threatening to attack the country.

‘Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up. They understand that. They’ll be fine,’ Trump added.

Oman did not publicly respond to Trump’s threat at the time. However, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the following day that Oman’s ambassador had assured him Muscat had no plans to charge vessels for passing through the strait.

Advertisement

Culprit Sean McKinley, 26, was jailed for 17 months on two counts of wilful fireraising, in one case to danger of life.

A traumatised mum who was the victim of four separate car fire attacks says her children are lucky to be alive.

The brave single parent dragged youngsters aged four and seven to safety after one blaze spread from a vehicle to the front of their house as they slept.

The mum, who wished to remain anonymous, spoke out after Sean McKinley, 26, was jailed for 17 months on two counts of wilful fireraising, in one case to danger of life.

He admitted torching cars outside the woman’s home in Chapelhall in March 2024 and February last year.

Two similar charges relating to vehicle fires in September and October 2024 were dropped.

The 36-year-old mum-of-four welcomed McKinley’s jail sentence but said it should have been longer.

She said: “This has been a terrifying time for us. Life hasn’t been the same since and never will be.

“To have this happen once is scary, but four times is going too far.”

Airdrie Sheriff Court heard the woman was targeted for “personal” reasons and McKinley carried out the attacks on behalf of another individual to fund his drug habit.

The mum went on: “If someone has a vendetta against me, fair enough, but don’t bring my babies into it.

“I’ll never forget the look of terror on their faces during the first fire when I managed to get them out of the back door to a neighbour.

“The flames incinerated the front door of the house and badly damaged my oldest child’s bedroom. Luckily he wasn’t at home that night.

“Thinking about what could have happened is the worst part of it.”

Annette Ward, prosecuting, said the mum and two of her children were asleep in their home when the car alarm went off at 2.45am.

Ms Ward told the court: “She saw her black Audi was on fire in the driveway. She called 999 and evacuated the house along with her children.

“A neighbour saw a hooded male running from the burning vehicle which was extensively damaged.”

The attack in February last year also happened in the early hours of the morning.

This time all four children were at home with their mum but the flames from a Range Rover in the driveway didn’t spread to the house.

Ms Ward said: “By this stage the woman had her own ring doorbell camera. This showed a hooded man pouring liquid over the bonnet of the car and setting it alight.

“Firefighters extinguished the flames but again there was extensive damage to the vehicle.”

Police linked McKinley, of Greenwood Crescent, Coatbridge, to a flat bed van that was seen in the street and at a filling station in Coatbridge.

McKinley’s own CCTV footage showed him leaving his home at 3.11am and returning at 3.48am. He was wearing a jacket similar to that worn by the hooded male in the victim’s doorbell footage.

Defence lawyer Tony Linden said McKinley was immature at the time and had used payment for the attacks “to fund his cocaine and alcohol habits”.

The solicitor added: “He is in a very different position now. He is in full -time employment and is in a strong relationship with a child due early next year.”

Jailing McKinley, Sheriff Tony McGlennan said: “These are extremely serious offences. Setting fire to vehicles carries an inherent risk, particularly when in close proximity to houses.

“Matters are aggravated because this was clearly a calculated choice by you. It might have been underpinned by an addiction to drugs, but you had every opportunity to step away.

“You chose to engage with an organised enterprise and, to make matters worse, did it not once but twice.”

The sheriff said the prison sentence would have been longer but for McKinley’s youth, guilty pleas and limited criminal record.

*Don’t miss the latest headlines from around Lanarkshire. Sign up to our newsletters here.

And did you know Lanarkshire Live had its own app? Download yours for free here.

Hayden Panettiere spoke about giving up custody of her daughter while struggling with addiction in her memoir, released just three months before her death aged 36.

The Hollywood actress, best known for her roles in Heroes and Nashville, was pronounced dead yesterday at an apartment block in Greenville, South Carolina.

Her raw and candid memoir ‘This Is Me: A Reckoning’ was released in the UK and US on May 19 and featured a series of details about being separated from her only child.

In it she discussed her depression after giving birth to her daughter Kaya, 11, and the eventual decision to give up custody to her ex-fiance Wladimir Klitschko, 50.

Panettiere, who began acting as a child, also wrote about being put into bed with a British singer and the moment an Oscar-winning actor exposed himself to her.

Put into bed with British singer

Panettiere described a troubling incident at the age of 19, when a friend told her to have sex with an unnamed British singer aged in his 30s.

The friend invited Panettiere to the south of France in 2009, where she boarded a ‘super yacht’ which the friend had hired for a week.

One day her friend told her to go downstairs with her. They entered a cabin, where she ‘saw a famous thirtysomething British singer songwriter lying in a bed’. She described him as shirtless and ‘from the waist down, he was covered by bedsheets’.

The friend then ‘leaned down and whispered in my ear: ‘I want you to get in bed with him. He has a huge d***.’ Panettiere did as she was told, before her friend left.

But before anything happened, the actress soon felt her heart pounding and told the man: ‘Look… I don’t know what she said to you, but this is not going to happen.’

She then jumped out of the bed and towards the door, running into the hall and toward her room. She booked a hotel and started packing her bags before leaving.

Panettiere said of her friend: ‘She’d confided in me, pampered me and treated me like her best friend – then turned around and treated me like a call girl.’

Hayden Panettiere in New York in July 2009, soon after the incident on the yacht that spring

Oscar winner exposed himself

Panettiere also explained the distressing moment an ‘Oscar winning actor and director’ exposed himself to her months earlier, when she was still aged 19.

The actress said the ‘actor and director’ showed his genitals to her at a private party – organised by the same friend who invited her to the yacht.

Panettiere was chatting with a group of men ‘in their forties and fifties’ at the party, when she ‘sensed these men’s eyes on me and it made me uncomfortable.’

She felt like a ‘young commodity ripe for the picking in that moment and decided to leave – when one of the men approached her as she was putting on her coat.

Panettiere said the man – whom she did not identify – claimed to have a ‘big wad of gum on his pants’. But she wrote: ‘I looked down and recoiled. This well-respected, award-winning actor’s testicles were hanging out from his unzipped fly.’

She did not tell her friend about the incident because she believed ‘the moment had passed’ and ‘assumed some older men had just grown up with no manners.’

Struggling with depression

After giving birth to her daughter Kaya, Panettiere began haemorrhaging before she underwent seven blood transfusions and surgery to repair vessels that began to fail.

And in the months following the birth in 2014, Panettiere faced a significant struggle with depression, explaining in her book how they did not bond as she had hoped.

The actress, who was aged 25 at the time, wrote: ‘I’d always heard that mothers feel an instant rush of love the moment they lay their eyes on their baby, but I felt nothing.’

Panettiere said she was finding it difficult to soothe her daughter and understand what she was experiencing, admitting her ‘natural optimism and pep’ had vanished.

In one incident, she worried that she had accidentally hurt Kaya while taking her out of the bath, but explained: ‘It wasn’t panic that was sitting in my chest.

‘It was nothing. A total blackout of emotion, like my soul was dead. I wasn’t myself, yet the problem was I didn’t know what I was supposed to be.’

Hayden Panettiere hugs her daughter Kaya in a photo she posted to Instagram in March 2017

Advertisement

Medication causing problems

Panettiere was diagnosed with postpartum depression and began having treatment when Kaya was four months old – but her medication caused further issues.

She explained how this kept her from ‘cracking’, adding: ‘To help me with my insomnia I had meds, the really powerful kind they’d prescribed me in treatment.’

However, Panettiere said this left her feeling like a ‘zombie’ – explaining: ‘They had a catch: if I didn’t take them, I couldn’t sleep. If I did, I slept too much.’

She also wrote: ‘I walked into rehab addicted to one substance, and I walked out, completely dependent on something else.’

The actress further explained how ‘anxiety buzzed inside me like a fluorescent light’, which she said was ‘keeping me reactive, on edge and full of dread’.

Alcohol addiction

Panettiere began turning to alcohol to cope with her depression after giving birth, and said she once poured so much wine into her glass that it ‘almost overflowed.’

The problem worsened when she returned to acting in TV drama Nashville, needing a drink just to get out of bed. She wrote: ‘It’s 6am and I’m trying to get drunk.’

Panettiere added: ‘The first thing I’d thought of when I woke up was alcohol. Not my child, not my job, and not the rest of my life.’

‘I needed a drink to function – at 6am – and that was f***ed. If I didn’t get some help as soon as possible, I was f***ed.’

She also said: ‘I’ve always strived to be a positive person, but I grieve all the hours I lose to addiction, my broken relationships and my loved ones who are no longer here.’

Giving up custody of Kaya

Panettiere discussed her heartbreaking decision in 2018 to give up custody of her daughter Kaya, now 11, to her ex-fiancé, Ukrainian former boxer Wladimir Klitschko.

Kaya had lived with her father full-time from a young age amid the actress’s struggles with substance addiction and mental health.

As these battles continued, the actress decided to sign over custody of her daughter to Klitschko who was not living in the same country as Panettiere at the time.

She said: ‘I remember every second of that day. Every f**ing second. No mother could forget a single thing about the day she signed her child away.’

Panettiere believes she had enough money to fight a custody battle but feared this would have destroyed her, given she was still in recovery at that point.

She decided not to celebrate the series finale of TV series Nashville, saying: ‘I couldn’t pretend that this chapter of my life was something to memorialise.’

After selling her home in Nashville, Panettiere said she now had ‘no work, no plan for work anytime soon, no boyfriend, and no Kaya to care for.’

Hayden Panettiere and Wladimir Klitschko with their daughter Kaya, now 11, in July 2016

Living without her daughter

Panettiere wrote movingly about the eight years of trying to be a mother having given up custody of her child Kaya, who was just three at the time.

The actress said: ‘Not being under the same roof with her every day has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life, and it’s hard to describe the layers of emotion – including sadness, resentment, and anger – I’ve felt because of it.

‘I grieve that I’m not the mother I thought I’d be and definitely not the mother I want to be (trust me, no one should ever have to raise a child on FaceTime), and although I miss Kaya so much my heart aches, I know how blessed I am to be her mom.

‘She is the greatest gift of my life, with all the best parts of her father and me, and, today, I believe I have the opportunity to be a different kind of parent than most.’

Taking full responsibility

Panettiere explained how she takes full responsibility for her shortcomings to her daughter – insisting she does not blame her former partner Klitschko.

The actress also described the Ukrainian former boxer, who competed from 1996 to 2017, as ‘one of the most courageous people I’ve ever met’.

She wrote: ‘She didn’t ask to be born into the limelight or my chaos, and she didn’t get to choose her parents. I want her to have every choice that I didn’t, including the ability to live a private life.

‘So out of respect for her right to normalcy, my stories of motherhood will be through my eyes only, and I’ll keep personal details of her life to a minimum.

‘I also want to make clear that I don’t blame Wlad for any of my wrongs; I take full responsibility for my part in our relationship and my shortcomings as a mom. Wlad is one of the most courageous people I’ve ever met and a true hero in so many ways.’

Panettiere has said she takes full responsibility for her shortcomings to her daughter Kaya 

Advertisement

Hopes for the future

Despite her struggles with addiction and depression, Panettiere spoke positively about the latest stage of her personal journey and how experiences had affected her.

She said: ‘Life can shake you up and tear you down, but even when you’re at your worst, there’s hope and you have an opportunity to rebuild.’

Speaking about her ‘years in treatment’, Panettiere also insisted she had ‘concluded that the only thing I can change is myself and the person I want to be’.

She also referred to ‘lifequakes’, which are defined as a big and often-unexpected shift or crisis in life, popularised in author Bruce Feiler’s book Life Is in the Transitions.

And Panettiere said: ‘I’m far from perfect, but my life quakes and moments of struggle are little miracles that have helped me grow.’

‘This Is Me: A Reckoning’ by Hayden Panettiere is available in hardback for £22