When Hayden Panettiere gave a two-hour interview to podcaster Jay Shetty earlier this year, it was clear that the actress had lived a deeply troubled life.
On the show to promote her memoir, she talked tearfully about the years of painful trauma she had suffered. From losing custody of her daughter to the death of her brother and a recent but seemingly permanent estrangement from her mother, her life had been punctuated by heartbreak.
And yet, at last, it seemed that things were looking up.
‘I finally feel like I have shaken off all this darkness and this negativity and that means that I’ve closed one door and another door is open and I can feel it open and I can feel all the exciting possibilities,’ she told the wellness guru and host of the podcast On Purpose. ‘I feel like I have a lot more life to live.’
But just three months later, Panettiere would be dead.
Now, insiders tell the Daily Mail how the 36-year-old had been shunned by Hollywood, left desperate for work and was haunted by her struggles with her mental health and addiction.
The tragic storm of personal and professional setbacks culminated this weekend, when she took a flight with her ex-boyfriend to South Carolina and was discovered ‘unresponsive’ at an apartment – believed to be an Airbnb – on Sunday. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Hayden Panettiere died on Sunday in South Carolina
Panettiere was found ‘unresponsive’ in the Judson Mill Lofts apartment where she was reportedly staying
The actress – who would have turned 37 on Friday – had a life marred by tragedies: addiction, mental health struggles, and more recently the death of her brother Jansen (pictured in 2019)
Detectives confirmed to the Daily Mail that they responded to a 911 call from an unidentified ‘acquaintance’ of the actress at the apartment block in Greenville around 1:50pm local time. The acquaintance described her as ‘unresponsive’ and said she was in ‘cardiac arrest’ after a suspected overdose, according to the call recording.
Narcan – a nasal spray used to reverse the effects of opioid overdose – was reportedly found on a mattress at the apartment located in the Judson Mill Lofts, per TMZ, but it is unclear if it was used in an attempt to revive Panettiere.
Paramedics tried to resuscitate Panettiere – who would have turned 37 this Friday – by performing chest compressions but she was pronounced dead just over 40 minutes after the first 911 call was made.
Police and the local coroner’s office are probing the death but said the ‘preliminary investigation has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances.’
On Monday, the Greenville County Coroner’s Office said that an autopsy had been completed and that there were ‘no signs of trauma were discovered that would have contributed to the death.’ No cause of death has been disclosed.
Her father Alan Lee ‘Skip’ Panettiere announced her death in a statement: ‘It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden.
‘She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her – and to the millions who watched her onscreen.’
He asked for privacy as the family ‘take time to process this unimaginable loss.’
The news shocked many who knew her in Hollywood. On the surface, Panettiere seemed to be in a good place. Her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, released in May this year, reached number four on the New York Times bestseller list and she was busy celebrating its success, traveling around the US to promote it and documenting the journey on Instagram.
Her last post, a black and white picture of her posing cheekily with celebrity photographer Randall Slavin, was shared on July 27, with the caption: ‘Good times and good friends.’
Yet the smiles and recent successes now seem little more than a mask to hide ongoing pain and a life plagued by tragedy.
In a recent interview on the podcast On Purpose with Jay Shetty, Panettiere she opened up about looking forward to a fresh start as she promoted her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning
Her last Instagram post, a black and white picture of her posing cheekily with Randall Slavin, was shared on July 27, with the caption: ‘Good times and good friends’
Panettiere was seen in LAX with crutches in March
TMZ reported that Panettiere had complained of back pain in the past year, and a source close to the family told us she ‘had nerve issues that caused trauma in her leg.’
‘But that was a while ago,’ they added, saying they were doubtful it had come back and, in any case, it was ‘not something you die from.’
In March, Panettiere was seen in the Los Angeles International Airport, hobbling on crutches alongside ex-boyfriend Brian Hickerson. In footage obtained by the Daily Mail, Panettiere explained that she was suffering from ‘some pinched nerves in my lower back.’
Chris Applebaum, who directed her Wake Up Call music video, saw Panettiere a few months ago at a party at Paris Hilton’s house in Los Angeles and said her pain appeared to be ‘debilitating.’
‘I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years and she still had the crutches,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘I was surprised because she didn’t have a lot of mobility and I really wanted to talk to her and catch up. She said she was struggling with it.
‘In order for us to sit down, and chat and tell stories, she had to park herself somewhere where she was a little bit more stable and comfortable.
Applebaum noted that Panettiere – who he said she was not drinking while everyone else was – had wanted ‘to power through’ the pain to be at the party because she wanted ‘to get out and not be locked in [her] place.’
He added: ‘Paris’ house is really, really big so in order for her to get to where the house is, she had to be assisted and helped.’
Her pain appears to have stemmed from an injury sustained in 2005, when, in a bizarre accident, Panettiere was thrown off of a zebra while filming the movie Racing Stripes in South Africa.
In May this year, she told Women’s Health magazine that it had left her temporarily paralyzed. The fall caused two vertebrae to be ‘pushed into [her] neck,’ she said.
‘I woke up and felt nothing but pins and needles from my waist down… I wasn’t able to bend my toes, lift my foot at all. No one was able to give me a solid answer. I was sitting there going: “Oh My God, am I going to be paralyzed for the rest of my life?”‘
Meanwhile, on July 10, she canceled a scheduled appearance at a horror movie convention ‘due to a family emergency,’ but no further details emerged.
Her mother Lesley Vogel was an actress herself, and Panettiere – a cherubic, chubby-cheeked infant – first appeared in an advert when she was just 11 months old.
There soon followed appearances as a child actor in US soap operas One Life to Live and Guiding Light as well as recurring roles in hit TV sitcom Malcolm in the Middle before she landed her first starring role in a Disney movie called Tiger Cruise.
Her breakthrough came with the NBC series Heroes in 2006, in which she played a cheerleader with healing powers. On the show for four years, she was widely regarded as destined for great things, and was next cast as country singer Juliette Barnes in the highly acclaimed musical drama series Nashville. She also landed a role in the Scream franchise.
Sadly, she could not capitalize on her newfound fame.
Panettiere first hit the spotlight at 11 months old. By the time she was five she had landed recurring roles on soap operas like One Life to Live and Guiding Light
By her side was her brother Jansen. ‘She was still tortured by her brother’s death,’ our insider said. ‘Hayden and Jansen were very close. When he had a problem, she’d be the first person he’d turn to’
A source close to the actress previously told the Daily Mail that the estrangement from her mother was ‘worse than anyone knows’
Panettiere was close to her father Alan Lee ‘Skip’ Panettiere, who announced her death, but was estranged from her mother Lesley Vogel, who used to manage her as a child star
‘Hayden had mental health struggles and addiction issues going on and they played a part in why her career didn’t take off again after Nashville,’ one industry insider told the Daily Mail.
‘When she was filming the show she had problems on the set, with execs and with her co-stars. She sometimes came to work looking like she’d been out partying. She’d often have to spend extra time in make-up to get her looking camera ready. She’d also sometimes be late for her call time.
‘She was desperate to land another series after Nashville ended, but the word had got out in Hollywood that she was a bit of a problem. Although she was considered a TV star, she still had to audition for big TV projects. She often struggled to get past the audition stage.’
They added: ‘Hayden was on a downward swing recently due to lack of decent roles.’
Her last appearance, indeed, was in the critically panned Sleepwalker, a psychological thriller released in January this year, in which she played a mother haunted by the tragic loss of her daughter.
It is a loss she knew all too well. In 2018, she handed over custody of her own daughter Kaya, now 11, to her ex-fiancé, former heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko.
In her memoir she recalled Kaya’s terrifying birth in 2014, how doctors called a ‘code crimson’ emergency, and she underwent a three-hour surgery after her blood would not clot following a C-section. She later learned her uterus had become infected.
Bonding with her newborn was an ‘insurmountable task,’ she wrote, admitting she ‘felt nothing’ towards her daughter – ‘a total blackout of emotion.’
Hayden turned to alcohol to cope, sometimes starting drinking as early as 6am. When Kaya was four months old, she entered treatment for her habit and was diagnosed with postpartum depression.
Medication helped but also left her sleepy – and she soon found herself returning to alcohol. From this moment on, Panettiere’s life began to spiral.
She lost a lucrative contract with the US skincare brand Neutrogena and her once-loving relationship with Klitschko broke down. Despite fighting to retain custody of her daughter, the Ukrainian boxer eventually won and Hayden signed Kaya over to him, initially believing the switch to be temporary.
‘I remember every second of that day. Every f*****g second,’ she wrote. ‘No mother could forget a single thing about the day she signed her child away.’
She continued: ‘Not being under the same roof with her every day has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life, and it’s hard to describe the layers of emotion – including sadness, resentment, and anger – I’ve felt because of it.
‘She is the greatest gift of my life, with all the best parts of her father and me.’
Panettiere was engaged to Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko, whom she granted full custody of their daughter Kaya in 2018
‘Hayden’s been racked with guilt about not being the mother she wanted to her child and allowing her ex-fiancée to bring up Kaya,’ our insider said
Reliving some of her darkest moment for the memoir has been cause for concern for some of those closest to her. ‘She was reliving a lot of the bad stuff over and over again,’ our insider said. ‘It probably wasn’t healthy for her, and it’s doubtful it put her in a good place’
‘Hayden’s been racked with guilt about not being the mother she wanted for her child and allowing her ex-fiancé to bring up Kaya,’ one insider told me. ‘She didn’t believe she was in the right mental state to be a good mother at the time. It bothered her greatly.’
There seemed to be little sympathy from her own mother, who once described her daughter as a woman who ‘does not want to be saved.’
Some of the more harrowing moments from Panettiere’s memoir are about their troubled relationship and estrangement.
After one audition – for an advertisement for Kodak when she was four years old – Panettiere recalled how she froze and couldn’t perform. The only fate worse than this on-stage humiliation, she wrote, was having to break the news to her mother, who was also her manager.
‘When she was so angry that my best option was to hide under my bed, her lower jaw migrated a few centimeters forward,’ Panettiere wrote.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she claimed that Vogel ‘groomed’ her to be a ‘little soldier’ when it came to performing, putting pressure on her to succeed to keep the family financially stable.
When she decided to drop Vogel as her manager at age 19, she claims her mother spat: ‘You owe me.’
Yet it was Vogel who decided to cut all communication with her daughter last year. ‘We each are entitled to choose our path in life,’ Vogel told the Daily Mail in May, claiming the relationship with her daughter had broken down altogether. ‘After 20 years of trauma, chaos, addictions, accusations, I felt I had no other option but to choose no contact.’
She added: ‘There will forever be a lingering hope that she will find her own path to inner peace.’
At the time a separate source close to the actress told the Daily Mail that the estrangement from her mother was ‘worse than anyone knows.’
Neither her mother – nor ex Klitchko – had commented on her death. The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for Panettiere for comment.
Other shocking stories from her memoir include the time Panettiere claimed an industry friend – referred to in the book under the pseudonym Stella McAmis – essentially delivered her to a naked British male singer on a yacht when she was just 18. She left before anything could happen.
She also opened up about the abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of her ex-boyfriend Hickerson. The pair dated on and off between 2018 and 2022 but seemed to have established a friendship in recent years, with the actress believed to have flown with him to his hometown of South Carolina from Los Angeles on Saturday.
The actress is believed to have flown with her ex-boyfriend Brian Hickerson to his hometown of South Carolina from Los Angeles on Saturday, the day before she died (pictured together at her brother’s memorial in 2023)
The pair dated on and off between 2018 and 2022 but seemed to have established a friendship in recent years
Back in 2021, the aspiring actor and property developer was sentenced to 45 days in county jail after pleading no contest to two felony counts of injuring Hayden.
He publicly admitted abusing her, telling TMZ earlier this year of the time he was ‘drunk,’ holding a phone in his hand, and told Panettiere: ‘Hayden I’ll give you ten seconds to run as fast as you can before I throw it at you.’
‘The idea that I could allow something like this to happen to me blew my mind,’ Panettiere told a magazine of their volatile relationship. ‘It blew the minds of the people that knew me best.’
Reliving some of her darkest moment for the memoir has been cause for concern for some of those closest to her.
‘A few months ago, she was reliving a lot of the bad stuff over and over again in interviews,’ our insider said. ‘It probably wasn’t healthy for her, and it’s doubtful it put her in a good place.’
One particular tragedy she was still battling to come to terms with was the death of her brother Jansen, also child actor, who died unexpectedly aged 28 in 2023. A user of heroin and crack cocaine, Jensen died – perhaps significantly – because of an enlarged heart, known as cardiomegaly, and aortic valve complications. ‘As far as I know Hayden didn’t get tested for any heart conditions following her brother’s death,’ our insider said.
And yet Jansen’s death was a source of huge guilt.
‘She was still tortured by it. Hayden and Jansen were very close. When he had a problem, she’d be the first person he’d turn to.’
‘I was shocked that it had gotten that bad,’ she said of his drug use. ‘When he said that he had put those two substances in his body, I was floored. I should have understood better than anybody what he was going through. And of all the people that could have saved him from passing away, it should have been me.’
And now she too is gone after a life plagued by tragedy and heart-break.
Who knows what she suffered in the end or why she died – but the pressures of early fame, and the breaking apart of her family, were perhaps in the end more than she could take.
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