Jack Coleman, the “Heroes” actor who played the father of Hayden Panettiere‘s Claire Bennet, posted an emotional tribute to his late co-star following her death this week at 36 years old.
“I’m heartbroken. I couldn’t begin to put my thoughts into words until now, and they will be inadequate,” Coleman wrote on Instagram alongside a carousel of photos of the two actors on the “Heroes” set throughout the years. “I’ve loved Hayden since day one of the pilot of ‘Heroes,’ 20 years ago, when she introduced herself by shouting ‘daddy’ and throwing her arms around me. From that day on, she called me daddio. She was Haydini, because she was a magician.”
Coleman used his tribute to express some of the ways he saw the industry negatively impact his younger co-star, including reporters who would ask her inappropriate questions when she was just a teenager.
“By 17 she was #1 on IMDB Pro. She was routinely asked obnoxious questions, mostly some version of ‘when are you going to go off the rails?'” Coleman recalled. “Today, we’d recognize those questions for the misogynistic provocations they were.”
“She was hunted. Everywhere she went, there were photographers with 300 millimeter lenses — the kind that can make even the most innocent activity look sinister,” he continued. “Once, when she came to our house, paparazzi hid in the bushes behind our yard and drove onto neighbors’ lawns. They were predatory. No one, especially a teenager, should be targeted that way.”
