Hayden Panettiere has opened up and confessed that she was “never a normal teenager,” and was “emotionally tortured,” by her classmates.

“I was tortured, emotionally tortured by these girls. Every time I came back from filming, it would be me trying to find my way back into the clique. And they weren’t having it.”

Hayden’s thoughts on her stardom as a child:

It wasn’t like I suddenly started feeling different. I always knew that I was. I never felt I missed out — in fact, it was like, ‘Oh, thank God I’m not that.”

The actress also confessed that her father was accused of hitting her mother:

“It’s turned my life upside down and shaken it … Nothing actually happened. It was very tough, especially since it’s my family. It’s one thing if you do it to me. I get frustrated, but I can handle it. But when it involves my family, my friends, forget it — I lose my … I learned the game. The more I react, the angrier I get, the more satisfaction they get. That’s exactly what they want.”

Hmm, I smell a bit of a drama queen here. Not over the issue of her father allegedly abusing her mother but the whole emotional torture thing gets to me. I’ve read and seen a lot of interviews with stars over the years, and many of them said when they went back to school after filming a project that it would be tough to fit in again. Unless the kids Hayden went to school with were particularly cruel, I don’t buy that she had it any worse than any other teen star.

But then again, I could be totally wrong and this girl really was tortured by her classmates.

Although somehow I doubt it.

Julie Wein