Hayden Panettiere Speaks Out on Costar Melissa Barrera's 'Scream VII' Firing: "Very Unfair and Upsetting"

"It was almost like she just did it earlier than everyone else," Panettiere said.

Hayden and Melissa
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jenny Hollander
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Two months after Melissa Barrera was fired from Scream VII following her support of Palestine on social media, her franchise costar Hayden Panettiere revealed in an interview with The Messenger that she felt the firing was "very unfair and upsetting." Panettiere added: "She was hurt by it, but I think she took it in stride and was very, very gracious about it.”

Barrera had posted in support of Palestine in the early days of the Israel-Palestine conflict, writing, "Why is it brown people are terrorists but white governments who act in similar ways are not?" among other pro-Palestinian posts. In early November, she was abruptly fired from the series over what Deadline calls "reposts in her Instagram stories [being] perceived as antisemitic." After she departed the series, Jenna Ortega also left over a reported salary dispute.

"I know who I am, and I know that what I said always came from a place of love and a place of humanity and a place of human rights and a place of freedom for people, which shouldn’t be controversial," Barrera told Rolling Stone of the controversy.

Melissa Barrera

(Image credit: Getty Images)

"You know, a lot of people hadn't really asked her how she felt," Panettiere told The Messenger. She added: "After she [spoke out], then a whole bunch of other actors and people in the industry started to do the same thing, right? It was almost like she just did it earlier than everyone else."

Panettiere concluded, "She was hurt by it, but I think she took it in stride and was very, very gracious about it."

Jenny Hollander
Jenny Hollander
Digital Director

Jenny is the Digital Director at Marie Claire. A graduate of Leeds University, and a native of London, she moved to New York in 2012 to attend the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She was the first intern at Bustle when it launched in 2013 and spent five years building out its news and politics department. In 2018 she joined Marie Claire, where she held the roles of Deputy Digital Editor and Director of Content Strategy before becoming Digital Director. Working closely with Marie Claire's exceptional editorial, audience, commercial, and e-commerce teams, Jenny oversees the brand's digital arm, with an emphasis on driving readership. When she isn't editing or knee-deep in Google Analytics, you can find Jenny writing about television, celebrities, her lifelong hate of umbrellas, or (most likely) her dog, Captain. In her spare time, she writes fiction: her first novel, the thriller EVERYONE WHO CAN FORGIVE ME IS DEAD, was published with Minotaur Books (UK) and Little, Brown (US) in February 2024 and became a USA Today bestseller. She has also written extensively about developmental coordination disorder, or dyspraxia, which she was diagnosed with when she was nine.

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