“RHOBH” alum Diana Jenkins denies she’s the friend who put teenage Hayden Panettiere into bed with 'very famous' man

Kathleen PerriconeThu, May 14, 2026 at 3:17 AM UTC

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Hayden Panettiere and Diana Jenkins in 2009
Credit: Jeff Vespa/WireImageKey Points -

Internet sleuths are attempting to unmask the "friend" who put Heroes star Hayden Panettiere into bed with a famous man.

Panettiere tells the story of this betrayal in her new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning.

One Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum whose name keeps turning up is Diana Jenkins, who denies being the friend.

Internet detectives went into overdrive when Hayden Panettiere dropped the bomb in her new memoir that a friend had betrayed her as a teen and put her into bed with an "undressed man who was very famous."

The Nashville actress didn’t provide any clues about the friend’s identity in This Is Me: A Reckoning; however, that didn’t stop social media sleuths from posting their two cents.

And the name that kept popping up everywhere from X to TikTok was: Diana Jenkins.

The former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star has battled rumors for well over a decade that she once ran a "secret call girl ring."

It all stemmed from her 2009 book, Room 23, which features provocative photos of Hollywood stars like Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes, George Clooney, and…Hayden Panettiere, who was 20-years-old at the time, had been a child star, and was at the time enjoying fame as superpowered cheerleader Claire on NBC series Heroes. In 2012, Jezebel speculated that Room 23 was nothing more than "a catalogue of clients and call girls."

Hayden Panettiere on 'Heroes' as Claire Bennet
Credit: Dean Hendler/NBC

A decade later, the rumors resurfaced when Jenkins joined season 12 of RHOBH. Looking back at the drama, "It was like an offense of my character," she said in a confessional on the Bravo show. Off-camera, Jenkins also sued a blogger who claimed she was a "sex trafficker."

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Now, she’s fighting to preserve her reputation once again — and emphatically denying the new rumors connecting Jenkins to Panettiere and the revelation in her new memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning.

“Diana has had to deal with false online rumors before, and sadly this is just another example of that,” Jenkins’ rep told TMZ in a statement. “So let me be 100 percent clear about this: It most certainly is not Diana, and anyone who claims it is her will be sued.”

In her book, Panettiere recalls the harrowing moment when was on a boat and "By the time I’d realized I was in danger, I was quite literally out to sea."

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As she read aloud on the podcast, On Purpose with Jay Shetty, she was "led by somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector" down a set of stairs and into a small room. "She physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous… My hair stood on end, and I became ferocious. I was like, 'This is not happening.'"

"I had nowhere to hide," Panettiere continued. "I bolted, and I hid wherever I could think of to hide on a boat. There was no jumping off and swimming away...and I realized that there was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation — that this was nothing new to them."

on Entertainment Weekly

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