Hayden Panettiere Claims Neutrogena Dropped Her After Postpartum Comments

Hayden Panettiere is about to release her memoir... so she's been an open book about her life lately ... and recently shared one shocking story about upsetting a skincare brand she endorsed after making postpartum comments.

HP recently said on the "On Purpose with Jay Shetty" podcast ... she was taken aback by the negative reaction to her postpartum comments during a morning show interview in 2015.

As she tells it ... after she randomly talked about her experience with postpartum on "Live! with Kelly and Michael," she was immediately told Neutrogena was not pleased with the remarks ... and that the company wanted to fire her on the spot. Her agent saved her job in the moment, but once her contract expired -- she was cut loose.

Hayden said her reaction in the moment was complete and total shock, that -- of all the things she could have done to break the morals clause in her contract -- it was to talk about her health. She called it "heartbreaking" ... because she'd been working with the company for a decade at that point -- and says when they dropped her, there was not a peep from the brass.

In that 2015 interview, she told the hosts in part ... “It’s something completely uncontrollable, and it’s really painful, and it’s really scary, and women need a lot of support."

Panettiere's memoir, "This Is Me: A Reckoning," drops May 19.