These are the photos of James Blunt and Hayden Panettiere that sparked wild rumors that he was the “famous British singer” the late actress was put to bed with at the age of 18.
The photos, taken in Cannes in 2009, show Panettiere and Blunt at an amfAR charity event with actor Justin Long and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Diana Jenkins.
Other photos show Panettiere and Blunt with friends on a yacht the day after the party.
Since Panettiere’s tragic death on August 16, the 2009 photos have sparked wild internet rumors that James is the unnamed musician from the late actress’ May 2026 memoir.
On Monday, the speculation prompted Blunt to share a link to a Substack article claiming he wasn’t the “famous British singer” from the book.
In her memoir, Panettiere wrote that she was 18 when a friend took her on a yacht to meet a British singer-songwriter who was then in her 30s, after which she walked into a cabin and found the man naked in bed.
Photos of James Blunt and Hayden Panettiere together in Cannes have surfaced after he raised speculation that he was the ‘famous British singer’ the late actress was put to bed with when she was just 18
The photos taken in 2009 show Panettiere and Blunt at an amfAR charity event with actor Justin Long and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Diana Jenkins
Many internet sleuths had speculated that the unnamed man mentioned in Panettiere’s memoir was Blunt, but the Substack article shared by the singer, written by journalist Dean Piper, claimed the timeline was incorrect.
When contacted by the Daily Mail in recent months, Blunt’s representatives categorically denied any insinuation that the singer is the one referenced in Panettiere’s memoir.
Piper had pointed out that the photos of Blunt and Panettiere were actually taken when the actress was 19 years old at the time, almost 20.
The rumors arose following the aforementioned photos and a 2009 article written by Piper, which claimed Blunt and Panettiere flirted at a charity event the day before they were spotted on a boat together.
However, Piper claimed in his new piece that if the alleged meeting with the hunting bottom had occurred when Panettiere was 18, Blunt would not have been involved in any way.
Blunt himself did not explicitly deny the claim, while repeating Piper’s claim that the rumors were untrue.
In a chapter titled Trust, Panettiere wrote in her memoir how she traveled on a superyacht with other celebrities cruising the south of France.
The actress said she was traveling with a “trusted” friend, who eventually encouraged her to sleep with the singer.
Other photos show Panettiere and Blunt with friends on a yacht the day after the party
It was claimed that the women spent several days aboard the yacht, swimming in the sea, dancing into the night and rubbing elbows with the ship’s other famous passengers.
But Panettiere claims her journey took a more disturbing turn one evening, when her trusted friend interrupted her dinner to ask her to come below deck to meet someone.
After stepping into a private cabin, she writes that she came face to face with a “famous thirty-something British singer-songwriter” who lay shirtless in his bed, with the sheets over his lower body.
‘Oh my God,’ I thought. “Is he naked under there?” wrote Panettiere.
She adds that her boyfriend then whispered, “I want you to sleep with him,” before leaving her and the unnamed man alone in his cabin.
Panettiere writes that she initially did as she was told, but her body and mind soon became disconnected.
“My body no longer felt like my own,” she wrote.
According to the memoir, Panettiere added that her experience as a child actor, constantly “managed” by adults, had instilled in her a sense of blind faith in others, even when her instincts suggested it was unwise.
“As soon as the door clicked shut, my survival instincts kicked in,” she continues.
Since Panettiere’s tragic death on August 16, the 2009 photos have sparked wild internet rumors that James is the unnamed musician from the late actress’ May 2026 memoir.
Panettiere claims she told the famously anonymous man, “Look… I don’t know what she said to you, but this isn’t going to happen.”
She then ran out of the room and back to her cabin, where she booked a hotel on the mainland for safer accommodations and prepared to disembark.
Panettiere, who says the incident left her feeling betrayed by her friend, describes it as feeling like she had been “kicked in the face.”
“She had confided in me, pampered me and treated me like her best friend – and then turned around and treated me like a call girl,” Panettiere claims.
Panettiere was found dead on August 16 of a suspected overdose at an Airbnb in Greenville, South Carolina, where she had been traveling with on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson, a resident of the state.
Hickerson and his brother, Zach, were both at the scene when Panettiere was pronounced dead.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has joined the investigation into the actress’ death.
