Hayden Panettiere Chops Off Her Locks To Celebrate New Start

On December 4, Hayden Panettiere shared a breathtaking selfie on Twitter. Underneath a brown-and-black hat, Panettiere sported chopped, shoulder-length tresses with a tease of waves. The updated style is a shift for the Nashville actress, who ordinarily dons platinum-blonde updos or long, curly hair. Panettiere’s hair transformation is her way of beginning anew.

“Chopping hair off is like getting rid of metaphorical and literal dead ends. Off with the old and growing the new ?,” was her caption on the Twitter photo.

The photo was Panettiere’s first tweet since beginning treatment for postpartum depression in October. She welcomed her first child, Kaya Evdokia, with her fiancé — former boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko — last December. Since then, Panettiere has publicly detailed her battle with postpartum depression, a disorder that strikes 15% of new mothers in the United States.

During an interview on Live! with Kelly & Michael in September, Panettiere opened up about how her own life mirrors that of her Nashville character, Juliette Barnes, who was also combating postpartum depression in the current season. “It’s something a lot of women experience,” Panettiere explained. “When [you’re told] about postpartum depression, you think it’s ‘I feel negative feelings towards my child, I want to injure or hurt my child’ — I’ve never, ever had those feelings. Some women do. But you don’t realize how broad of a spectrum you can really experience that on. It’s something that needs to be talked about. Women need to know that they’re not alone and that it does heal.”

She also has a fresh perspective on postpartum depression that can aid other women who experience the condition. “There’s a lot of misunderstanding. There’s a lot of people out there that think that it’s not real, that it’s not true. That it’s something that’s made up in their minds, that, ‘Oh, it’s hormones.’ They brush it off,” she said. "It’s something that’s completely uncontrollable. It’s really painful and it’s really scary and women need a lot of support.

The Heroes alum’s tweet comes after she was spotted smiling ringside at her beau’s fight last Saturday.