Neutrogena still silent on Hayden Panettiere. Is that intentional?

Neutrogena is facing mounting backlash following the passing of longtime former ambassador Hayden Panettiere, as allegations she made about the brand's treatment of her during her experience with postpartum depression resurface across social media.

Panettiere, who passed this week, alleged earlier this year that Neutrogena had sought to end its relationship with her after she publicly discussed experiencing postpartum depression in 2015. Speaking about the episode in her memoir and subsequent interviews, Panettiere said the situation came after nearly a decade of working with the skincare brand and left her deeply hurt.

The allegations initially sparked criticism when they surfaced in May, but Panettiere's passing has brought renewed attention to her claims. Social media users have since flooded Neutrogena's channels with criticism, while calls to boycott the brand and switch to competing skincare products have gained traction online.

Neutrogena did not publicly address Panettiere's allegations when they first surfaced. In the days following her passing, MARKETING-INTERACTIVE held off on examining the brand's response to allow time for Neutrogena to address the renewed attention surrounding Panettiere's claims. At the time of writing, however, the brand has yet to issue a public statement.

The brand's silence raises a broader communications question. While staying quiet can prevent brands from fuelling an emotionally charged crisis, prolonged silence can also leave consumers to fill the information vacuum themselves. As criticism intensifies online, is saying nothing a calculated move, or does silence eventually become a statement of its own?

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According to Deborah Abraham, director at DNA PR & Communications, even at this stage, the brand would be advised to put out a statement for the simple fact that it is being named - even if it were a placeholder to establish a level of awareness and communicating that the brand is saddened by the news of a former brand ambassador.

When asked what a likely reason could be for the hold up, Abraham said possibly it is being caught off guard. “In my personal experience, there are many times where large organisations are completely unprepared and often paralysed from a crisis, taking ages to respond.”

“It is usually defensive at first, then denial -and after mounting internal and external pressure, they finally reach a consensus,” she said.

A senior PR professional, who wanted to remain anonymous, agreed that silence is not neutral, but cautioned against issuing the kind of defensive statement being demanded online.

In his view, attempting to contest Panettiere's account days after her passing would risk appearing as though the brand was arguing its case at a moment of grief. Instead, he pointed to Neutrogena's own recent communications as a factor making its silence more conspicuous.

On 13 August, Neutrogena responded to backlash surrounding its Tate McRae campaign with a first-person social video narrated by a makeup wipe, a turnaround the professional said demonstrated the brand's ability to react quickly and with self-awareness.

"When you show the market you can turn something around in 72 hours with a wipe as the punchline, you publish your own service-level agreement," he said. "Every hour past it gets measured against a clock you set yourself."

For the professional, this means the question is no longer simply whether Neutrogena should issue a statement, but why a brand that has demonstrated its ability to respond quickly has chosen not to publicly address this particular issue. They added: 

This is when silence stops reading as caution and starts reading as a decision about which audiences are worth answering.

If the window for a conventional statement has passed, the professional argued that a more structured response could carry greater credibility. This could begin with private condolences to Panettiere's family, followed separately by a review of health-related clauses across the brand's ambassador roster and publication of the findings.

"Brands don't recover from these by talking. They recover by changing something the industry, a journalist, the person reading this can verify twelve months from now," they said.

Talking is only the first step

Patricia Malay, general manager at Bud Communications, similarly said the controversy carries implications beyond Panettiere and Neutrogena, particularly around how companies treat people who speak publicly about mental health.

She cautioned against speculating about the circumstances of Panettiere's passing or drawing any unsubstantiated causal connection. Instead, Malay said attention should remain on what Panettiere herself had publicly alleged about her experience with the brand.

For Malay, the claims resonate because they speak to a broader tension between companies encouraging conversations around mental health and whether their workplaces and commercial relationships actually provide the psychological safety for people to have them.

"We spent the last decade telling people it's okay to talk about mental health. But creating and holding psychological safety is another thing altogether," she said.

The issue also demonstrates how decisions made years ago can return to be assessed against the values companies claim to uphold today. For communications leaders faced with such situations, the question becomes what the treatment of the person involved ultimately says about the organisation.

On whether Neutrogena should respond, Malay's answer was yes, but said the nature of that response depends on whether the company treats the situation as a PR problem or an accountability issue.

She said the brand should acknowledge Panettiere not simply as a former spokesperson, but as someone it had a relationship with for a decade, as well as publicly acknowledge that Panettiere said she felt abandoned by the company after speaking about postpartum depression.

From there, Malay said Neutrogena should establish what happened and, if Panettiere's allegations are substantiated, acknowledge where it went wrong rather than relying on contractual clauses, distancing itself from past decision-makers or arguing that attitudes were different at the time.

The next step would be demonstrating what has changed, including reviewing policies that could allow a mental health disclosure to become a brand-safety concern and providing meaningful support for postpartum mental health.

However, Malay cautioned against turning any response into a marketing opportunity or campaign. She noted: 

Sometimes the best reputation management isn't defending the reputation you had. It's in demonstrating that a brand can learn enough to deserve a different one.

Is silence always the wrong move? 

Not everyone, however, sees immediate silence as a communications failure. Meilin Wong, founder and managing director of reputation advisory Ember42 and former partner and CEO at Milk & Honey PR, argued that not every backlash requires an immediate statement.

Wong said Neutrogena should not respond simply because consumers expect it to, particularly if the result is a statement designed primarily to calm online criticism. A poorly considered response, she argued, could make the situation worse.

Instead, she said the central question is whether Panettiere's allegation that Neutrogena sought to drop her after she spoke publicly about postpartum depression is accurate.

"Neutrogena needs to answer that clearly and soon. If it cannot establish the facts yet, say so and commit to doing so," Wong said, adding that this would carry greater credibility than a vague tribute or carefully worded apology that could appear hollow or disingenuous.

While Wong does not believe it is too late for Neutrogena to respond, she said the longer the company waits to address Panettiere's allegation, the harder it may become to convince consumers that its response is motivated by genuine concern rather than mounting commercial pressure.

Ultimately, she said damage control needs to extend beyond a polished statement. Neutrogena would need to demonstrate that it understands why Panettiere's allegation has resonated, particularly at a time when brands frequently position themselves as supporters of mental health. Wong said: 

It is showing what the company believes today, whether its treatment of people experiencing mental health challenges has changed, and what it is prepared to do now.

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