Killer Thriller: A perfect daughter. A devastating secret. Danielle Panabaker talks ‘Crowning at the Prom’
episodePreviously titled “A perfect daughter. A devastating secret. Danielle Panabaker talks ‘Crowning at the Prom’” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
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This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem.
Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Disgraceland, I tell the stories behind music's biggest names. Like how the story of the Foo Fighters isn't just about music. It's about grief, shock, and the moment everything changed. Imagine that. You're in the biggest band on the planet, as Dave Grohl was in 1994 in Nirvana. And the phone rings, and you learn that your singer, your friend, the reluctant voice of a generation, Kurt Cobain, is dead. Listen to Disgraceland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us, and now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them.
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Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host, Alisa Donovan.
Hey everyone, Elisa Donovan here, and this is Killer Thriller. Today I'm joined by actress Danielle Panabaker to talk about her new Lifetime movie, Crowning at the Prom. Danielle plays Abigail, a devoted single mother whose daughter Kat appears to have the perfect life. She's an honors student, a standout athlete, and on the verge of becoming prom queen. But behind that carefully crafted image, Kat is hiding a secret that threatens to unravel everything she's worked so hard to achieve. According to Lifetime, crowning at the prom was inspired by real-life events, though it's not based on any one specific case. So before we get to my conversation with Danielle, my producer and I are talking about two real crimes that share striking themes with the film.
Concealed pregnancies, crushing expectations, and the devastating consequences that can follow when fear and shame convince someone they have nowhere to turn. OK, Hannah. Hi. Let's chat it up here about this. These I mean, I hate to always use the word unfathomable, but I don't quite know what else to call them. But OK, these crimes. The first is the Melissa Drexler case, better known as the prom mom case. She was 18 years old. went to her senior prom in New Jersey, gave birth in a restroom during the dance, and reportedly wrapped the baby in plastic bags, put it in the garbage can, and then went out and ate a salad. Meanwhile, no one at the prom even knew that she had been pregnant in the first place.
I mean, it's like this is almost impossible to wrap your head around. It's crazy to think about. Yeah, I mean, so Melissa Drexler had hidden her pregnancy from her parents, her friends, even the baby's father. How does someone keep something that enormous a secret for nine months? For nine months. I mean, can you, you've been pregnant. I have been pregnant. I couldn't keep it quiet for like three days. I was like, I don't feel right. You know, a hundred percent same. And it's you. I mean, obviously 18 years old is a very scary situation to be pregnant. And that's a different circumstance, but it was yeah. Between the symptoms that you're dealing with of whether you're sick or not, even just like, the bloating, the boob swelling, the, you know, like, I think that is crazy to me.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
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