James Blunt cosies up to wife Sofia as he is seen for the first time since breaking his silence on Hayden Panettiere claims

James Blunt enjoyed a date night with his wife Sofia on Tuesday, the first sighting of the singer since he broke his silence on speculation that he was the 'famous British singer' who Hayden Panettiere was put into bed with.

Blunt, 52, cosied up to his attorney wife of 12 years at the launch of Amanda Wakeley's new book Style DNA: How to Dress with Confidence at The Franklin Hotel.

With a beer in hand, the singer looked relaxed as Sofia, dressed in a chic checked coord, wrapped an arm around his waist.

Last month Blunt shared a link to a Substack article, which argued he was not the unnamed musician from Panettiere's memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, released last year.  

In the book, the actress, who died at 36 of a suspected overdose in August, wrote she was 18 when a friend brought her on to a yacht to meet a British singer-songwriter who was in his 30s at the time, only for her to walk into a cabin and find the man naked in bed.

Many internet sleuths had speculated that the unnamed man mentioned in Panettiere's memoir was Blunt, but the Substack article shared by the singer, which was written by journalist Dean Piper, claimed that the timeline does not fit.

When contacted by the Daily Mail in recent months, Blunt's representatives have categorically denied any insinuation that the singer is the one referenced in Panettiere's memoir. 

Piper had pointed out that a photo of Blunt and Panettiere from Cannes in 2009 was actually taken when the actress was 19 years old, nearly 20, at the time.

The rumors were sparked due to the aforementioned photo and a 2009 article written by the journalist, which claimed Blunt and Panettiere were flirty at a charity event the day before being spotted on a boat together.

However, Piper claimed in his piece that if the alleged yacht bed encounter had happened when Panettiere was 18, there was no way that Blunt had been involved.

The writer goes on to address other factors that would rule the British singer-songwriter out, including the size of his penis.

Writing in a chapter titled Trust, Panettiere wrote about how she was traveling on a super yacht with other celebrities cruising around the South of France.

The actress said that she was traveling with a 'trusted' female friend, who ultimately encouraged her to get into bed with the singer.

It was claimed that the women spent multiple days aboard the yacht, during which they swam in the sea, danced long into the night and rubbed elbows with the ship's other famous passengers.

But Panettiere alleged that her trip took a more disturbing course one night, when her trusted friend interrupted her dinner to ask her to come below deck to meet someone.

After stepping into a private cabin, she wrote that she came face-to-face with a 'famous thirtysomething British singer–songwriter' who was shirtless in his bed, with the sheets covering his lower body.

'"Oh my God," I thought. "Is he naked under there?"' Panettiere wrote. She added that her friend then whispered, 'I want you to get in bed with him,' then left her and the unnamed man alone in his cabin.

Panettiere wrote that she did as she was told at first but her mind and body 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, who was constantly being 'managed' by adults, had instilled in her a sense of blind trust in others, even when her instincts suggested that was unwise.

'As soon as the door clicked closed, my survival instinct kicked in,' she continued.

Panettiere claimed that she told the famous anonymous man, 'Look... I don't know what she said to you, but this is not going to happen.'

Then, she 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 said the incident made her feel as if she had been betrayed by her friend, described it as feeling as if she had been 'kicked in the face'.'She’d confided in me, pampered me and treated me like her best friend – then turned around and treated me like a call girl,' Panettiere alleged.

Panettiere was found dead of a suspected overdose on August 16 at an Airbnb in Greenville, South Carolina, where she had traveled with on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson, a native of the state. 

On the day Panettiere died, she had taken a bag of 'various pills' on a flight from Los Angeles to go on vacation to South Carolina.

The star and her on-off real estate agent boyfriend had flown to his home state together, and investigators believe she overdosed on a fentanyl-laced oxycodone pill soon after she arrived.

Hickerson gave Panettiere a dose of Narcan, a medicine that quickly reverses an opioid overdose, after he found her unresponsive in their rental apartment, police said.

Sources said investigators are now working to trace the fatal pill back to the dealer who allegedly sold it to her.