Hayden Panettiere Feared Her Rising Fame Would Hurt Connie Britton on ‘Nashville’ Set

When Nashville debuted in 2012, the on-screen rivalry between Hayden Panettiere‘s rising upstart Juliette Barnes and Connie Britton‘s reigning queen Rayna Jaymes quickly became must-see television. But behind the cameras, Panettiere was doing everything she could to make sure that tension stayed fictional.

In her new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, Panettiere details the anxiety she felt when the ABC show’s power dynamic unexpectedly shifted in her favor. According to Entertainment Weekly, the actress writes candidly about how her character’s popularity rattled her more than it thrilled her.

“My character wasn’t intended to be the show’s star — not even close,” Panettiere, 36, writes, per the article. “That honor went to Connie, whose Rayna Jaymes was in the twilight of her career, facing a dramatic turning point thanks to yours truly.”

The problem surfaced almost immediately. After the pilot aired, her billing skyrocketed, and she knew the optics were tricky. “Unfortunately, after the pilot, it was clear that my billing had gone way up. I went from maybe number five in terms of importance to nipping at Connie’s heels. I was deeply uncomfortable with this development,” she writes, as reported by Entertainment Weekly.

Panettiere was especially conscious of where Britton, 59, stood in her career at the time — an Emmy-nominated veteran and new mother. “I was twenty-three years old, and Connie was in her forties with three Emmy nominations under her belt,” she recalls in the book, according to the article. “This should have been her time to shine, and while it was in many respects, I was terrified of making Connie worry that I — not my character — was trying to compete with her.”

She even found small, deliberate ways to signal deference. Per the outlet, during promo shoots that required both actresses to reach for a microphone stand simultaneously, Panettiere made a conscious choice. “I always made sure to grab the mic under Connie’s hand, showing her I came in peace and with respect,” she writes in the memoir.

This Is Me: A Reckoning also chronicles Panettiere’s journey from child actress to her struggles with substance abuse, her decision to sign over custody of daughter Kaya to ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko, her abusive relationship with ex Brian Hickerson, and the devastating loss of her brother Jansen, who died in 2023 at age 28.