Hayden Panettiere spilled the Nashville tea fans have been impatiently anticipating for greater than a decade — and it seems the country-music drama didn’t facilitate the quite backstage sisterhood viewers might need imagined.
In her debut memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning — released in May 2026 — Panettiere got candid about feeling “deeply uncomfortable” once her billing on the ABC hit began creeping up on costar Connie Britton’s — and the way she spent 4 seasons quietly trying to not step on the older star’s toes.
Keep scrolling for the whole lot to learn about their dynamic:
Hayden Panettiere Reflects on Her ‘Nashville’ Billing Surprise
Panettiere played rising country firecracker Juliette Barnes opposite Britton’s seasoned superstar Rayna Jaymes when the series debuted on ABC in October 2012. It ran for 4 seasons before CMT picked up the show in December 2016 and carried it for its final two years, with Britton exiting in Season 5.
Based on Panettiere’s memoir, she was never purported to be the breakout star of the series.
“My character wasn’t intended to be the show’s star — not even close,” Panettiere wrote. “That honor went to Connie, whose Rayna Jaymes was within the twilight of her profession, facing a dramatic turning point because of yours truly.”
She continued, “Unfortunately, after the pilot, it was clear that my billing had gone way up. I went from perhaps number five when it comes to importance to nipping at Connie’s heels. I used to be deeply uncomfortable with this development.”
Hayden Panettiere on the Age and Experience Gap With Connie Britton
Panettiere, who was 23 when filming began, says the age gap between her and Britton made the highlight shift feel much more loaded.
“I used to be twenty-three years old, and Connie was in her forties with three Emmy nominations under her belt,” she wrote. “She was also a brand new mom. This could have been her time to shine, and while it was in lots of respects, I used to be scared of making Connie worry that I — not my character — was attempting to compete together with her.”
That anxiety bled into Panettiere’s on-set behavior. In a September 2025 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Panettiere said she “kept apologizing” to Britton through the early episodes because she “didn’t wish to step on toes,” adding that after their first scene together she was “just so passive-aggressive to her.”
The vibe, she wrote in her book, was nothing like Heroes. The Nashville solid was not “one big completely satisfied family,” she says, and he or she “couldn’t figure it out.”
Hayden Panettiere name-dropped several celebrity friends and exes in debut memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning. “I feel people will probably be surprised by what they learn,” Panettiere, 36, told Us Weekly in her cover story published in May 2026, revealing that she was “terrified” to inform her story. “The primary thought that went through my […]
Hayden Panettiere Reveals her Quiet Gestures Toward Connie Britton
Panettiere details one moment that captured how rigorously she tried to defer to her costar — a scene meant to dramatize Juliette and Rayna’s rivalry at a microphone stand.
“We were directed to saunter toward the mic stand and — at the identical time — reach to grab it. This might insinuate our characters’ rivalry,” Panettiere wrote. “I all the time made sure to grab the mic under Connie’s hand, showing her I got here in peace and with respect.”
She added, “I don’t know if she noticed, but I did; I used to be not going to step on the toes of Rayna Jaymes or Connie Britton.”
Connie Britton on Her Distance From Hayden Panettiere
Britton has previously addressed the connection. Chatting with Us Weekly at a Recent York screening event in June 2019, Britton said the pair had drifted apart after the show wrapped.
“We type of haven’t really been in a robust connection for the reason that show ended,” Britton said, adding that she wasn’t “super aware” of Panettiere’s personal struggles on the time.
This story was compiled with the assistance of AI tools and edited by journalists.