CBS Mornings host Gayle King blasted the mother of late actress Hayden Panettiere, who died on Sunday at the age of 36, for her public response to her daughter’s death.
King said Lesley Vogel’s statements about Panettiere made her think, “‘Thanks, Mom, for nothing,’” as she slammed the statement on Wednesday.
“It makes me so sad of the opportunity that you have after your daughter’s death that that’s what you choose to leave us with,” King said.
Vogel, 70, managed Panettiere’s career from infancy up until the star starred in the hit superhero drama Heroes. Panettiere wrote in her memoir that her relationship with her mother had grown toxic and complicated, resulting in her firing her as her manager.
The star was found dead in a luxury loft complex in South Carolina in the company of her abusive ex-boyfriend Brian Hickerson, whom Vogel placed the blame on in her statement on Tuesday.
“There is a lot of history in the past that Brian has enabled Hayden many times, and this is why her father and I had been concerned for a long time about him,” Vogel said.
She added, “I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments, and I think young people who grow up in the entertainment industry. It is a struggle, and it’s a very challenging industry, and it’s not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path.”
King and her CBS Mornings co-hosts seemed particularly put off by Vogel’s comments that her late daughter “sadly lost her way” and that she wished she “stayed true to herself because she had many incredible attributes.”
King lamented the statement during Wednesday’s broadcast, “You know, guys, you read this, and all I can think is, ‘Thanks, Mom, for nothing.’” Acknowledging Panettiere’s own account of her “complicated relationship with her mom,” King said, “You hear stuff like that, and you realize it was still very much [a work] in progress.”
Added co-host Kelly O’Grady, “We would all agree” that she could have “stopped at ‘she’s amazing and she’s talented.’”
After all, noted co-host Vladimir Duthiers, “Hayden Panettiere spent years publicly acknowledging her own failures, her own struggles… She cannot respond now, and for her mother to use these days after Hayden’s death to just remind the world just how much trauma she caused, it’s unseemly.” Duthiers added, “You would hope a mother’s instinct is just—mourn your daughter.”
By contrast, the actress’s father released a statement calling Panettiere “an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her—and to the millions who watched her onscreen.”
King concluded that Vogel should “follow the lead of your partner, the father of her child.”
