August 17, 2026
This isn’t today’s update. Apparently I’m just full of things I need to write about today.
Bear with me because I still haven’t slept and I’m exhausted, but this is important.
Hayden Panettiere died yesterday at 36 years old.
Thirty-six.
She was a young woman with an enormous amount of talent who had been working in the entertainment industry since she was a child. She grew up in front of cameras and, later in her life, spoke publicly about painful experiences she endured while navigating that world.
And I keep coming back to the same question.
When are we going to start doing a better job protecting children in the entertainment industry?
We have heard stories from former child actors for decades. Different people. Different generations. Different studios and television shows. Yet we continue hearing adults describe things they experienced as children that they never should have been exposed to in the first place.
At what point do we stop treating these stories like shocking Hollywood revelations and start asking why the protections surrounding children who work in entertainment still aren’t good enough?
Children are children.
I don’t care if they’re famous. I don’t care if they’re earning more money than most adults will ever see. I don’t care if they’re exceptionally talented or mature for their age. They are still developing human beings surrounded by adults in an industry where enormous amounts of money and power are involved.
They deserve adults whose first responsibility is protecting them.
Hayden was also very open throughout her adult life about struggling with addiction. I don’t know everything she experienced, and I’m not going to pretend that I do. But I do know that people who carry trauma sometimes find ways to numb pain that they don’t otherwise know how to live with.
And that brings me to something else we desperately need to talk about.
Addiction.
There are reports today that emergency responders were initially called for an apparent overdose in Hayden’s case. Her official cause of death has not been determined, and I sincerely hope people allow her family and the investigators the time needed to establish what actually happened rather than turning speculation into fact.
But regardless of what ultimately caused Hayden’s death, the conversation about overdose and addiction still matters.
We are losing too many people.
And I am so fucking tired of watching society treat addiction primarily as a moral failure.
Addiction is a health issue.
That doesn’t mean pretending drugs aren’t dangerous. It doesn’t mean encouraging people to use them. It doesn’t mean giving up on recovery.
It means acknowledging reality.
People use drugs.
Some people become addicted to them.
Some people relapse after years of recovery.
Some people are using substances while carrying trauma, grief, mental illness, physical pain or experiences the rest of us know absolutely nothing about.
And telling them to simply stop clearly isn’t enough.
This is one reason I believe so strongly in harm reduction, including overdose-prevention centers and supervised consumption programs.
People sometimes hear that and immediately think, “So you want to make it easier for people to use drugs?”
No.
I want fewer people to die.
Those are not the same thing.
Harm reduction starts from the reality that a person who is struggling with addiction may use a substance whether we approve of it or not. The question then becomes whether we leave that person alone somewhere with absolutely no help available if something goes wrong, or whether we create ways to keep them alive long enough to have another chance.
You cannot recover if you’re dead.
You cannot go to treatment if you’re dead.
You cannot rebuild your relationship with your family if you’re dead.
You cannot have a breakthrough six months from now if you’re dead.
Keeping someone alive isn’t condoning their addiction.
It’s keeping open the possibility that their story isn’t finished yet.
We also need to stop talking about relapse as if it erases everything someone accomplished before it. Recovery can be incredibly complicated. Someone can be doing well and still struggle. They can make progress and stumble. They can desperately want a different life while still fighting the thing that has had its claws in them for years.
That doesn’t make them weak.
It makes them human.
And whatever we eventually learn about Hayden’s death, I hope we remember the human being before we turn her into a cautionary tale.
She was somebody’s daughter.
She was somebody’s mother.
She was somebody’s friend.
She was a woman who had talent, struggles, accomplishments, mistakes, pain and an entire life that cannot and should not be reduced to the circumstances surrounding her death.
My heart is with her daughter, her parents and everyone who loved her.
And if her death ultimately does turn out to have involved an overdose, I hope we don’t spend a week talking about how tragic it is and then move on until another young person dies.
I hope we ask harder questions.
How do we protect children working in entertainment?
How do we support people carrying trauma long after childhood ends?
How do we make addiction treatment easier to access?
How do we expand evidence-based harm reduction?
How do we keep someone alive long enough for recovery to become possible?
And what can ordinary people do?
One very small thing is carrying naloxone, commonly known by the brand name Narcan.
Learn how to recognize a possible opioid overdose. Learn how to administer naloxone. Keep it somewhere accessible. You don’t have to use drugs or even know someone who does. You could simply happen to be the person standing nearby when somebody needs help.
Maybe you’ll carry it for years and never use it.
Good.
But someday you might.
And you might save somebody’s child.
Somebody’s parent.
Somebody’s best friend.
Somebody who is struggling.
Somebody who hasn’t gotten their second chance yet.
Hayden Panettiere was 36 years old.
Whatever ultimately caused her death, that’s far too fucking young.
We have to start doing better.