Hayden Panettiere’s estranged mom, Lesley Vogel, took aim at Gayle King after the talk show host’s public comments about the bereaved mother following her daughter’s death.
“I was very, very hurt and deeply disappointed in the lack of professionalism, the lack of compassion in slamming someone who’s lost two children, without even a modicum of consideration,” Vogel told the Daily Mail King’s criticism of her statement following Panettiere’s death.
“No one reached out to me before,” she added. “It’s shameful. It’s unconscionable to me.”
A rep for the talk show host did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment on Saturday afternoon.
In an initial statement following Panettiere’s death after an apparent overdose on Sunday, Vogel told NBC News Tuesday, “I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments.”
“And I think young people who grow up in the entertainment industry — it is a struggle, and it’s a very challenging industry, and it’s not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path,” she added.
Vogel then slammed her daughter’s on-again off-again boyfriend, who was with the “Nashville” star when she was found unresponsive in an Airbnb in Greenville, South Carolina.
“This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death,” she continued, “and that was Brian Hickerson.”
On Wednesday’s episode of “CBS Mornings,” King repeated Vogel’s statement, which she then commented on, saying, “You know, guys, you read this and all I can think is, ‘Thanks, Mom, for nothing.’”
“It makes me so sad of the opportunity that you have after your daughter’s death,” she continued. “That that’s what you choose to leave us with.”
King — who had spoken with Panettiere in May about her “complicated relationship with her mom” — criticized Vogel for failing to “follow the lead” of the former child star’s father, Skip Panettiere, whose own statement celebrated his daughter’s “incredible light and a force of nature.”
The journalist’s colleagues agreed with the sentiment, with Kelly O’Grady saying the bereaved mom should have “stopped at ‘she’s amazing and she’s talented.’”
Vladimir Duthiers stressed that Panettiere, who “cannot respond now,” spent “years publicly acknowledging her own failures, her own struggles.”
“For her mother to use these days after Hayden’s death to just remind the world just how much trauma she caused, it’s unseemly,” he added. “You would hope a mother’s instinct is just mourn your daughter.”
Amid additional criticism from Holly Robinsonn Peete and Megyn Kelly, Vogel released another statement on Thursday addressing her estrangement from her daughter.
“Although my daughter and I were estranged, it was not for lack of care or love,” Vogel told Entertainment Tonight.
“It was due to the involvement of a toxic individual who I believe led to her death.”
In May, following the bombshell publication of Panettiere’s memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” Vogel lashed out at various claims the actress had made about their relationship.
Vogel told Page Six at the time that she believed “the present drama is partially to sell books” and said that “after 20 years of trauma, I took the advice of professionals and chose the no-contact route” with her famous daughter.
“As many parents of entertainment children [know], we are all too familiar with the painful observation of watching the self-destructive paths they sometimes choose,” Vogel told us in part.
“You cannot save someone who does not want to be saved,” she continued. “Radical acceptance is the most difficult challenge any parent must embrace. Unfortunately, I have seen a great deal of such in my life experience.”
Hayden subsequently told Us Weekly at the time, “We don’t have a relationship right now. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t leave the door open for the opportunity to present itself one day.”
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