‘Nashville’ Star Shared Haunting Final Post Before Her Sudden Death at 36
Hayden Panettiere died on Sunday.
Getty Images/Instagram
Nashville actress Hayden Panettiere died on Sunday at 36. Just three weeks before her sudden death, she shared a heartbreaking final post on Instagram.
In the black-and-white photo shared on July 27, Panettiere winked at the camera with a big smile as she leaned on her friend, photographer and director Randall Slavin.
Her post doesn’t say when or where the photo was taken. The image appears to show a pair of close friends surrounded by people during a fun night out, but the story behind it is more somber.
“Good times and good friends,” the former child star wrote in her caption, adding a sparkling star emoji.
Slavin told TMZ on Monday that the photo was taken 15 years earlier at a party at a friend’s home. He “stumbled across the image on an old hard drive and texted it to Hayden,” he said, not realizing that she would reshare the image on social media.
The pair had drifted, Slavin said, revealing that he had last seen her “in passing” over a year before she died.
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In one of her final interviews, Panettiere reflected on her excitement for life on the On Purpose With Jay Shetty podcast in May.
“I finally feel like I have shaken off all of this darkness and this negativity,” the Heroes star said. “I can feel all the exciting possibilities. I feel like I have a lot more life to live.”
Hayden Panettiere was discovered unconscious in the Judson Mill Lofts, an apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina.
Police officers and EMS personnel reportedly responded to a 911 call about a medical emergency at the Judson Mills Lofts apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina, at 1:51 p.m.
The call about an “unresponsive female” was made by an acquaintance of Panettiere.
Hayden Panettiere as Claire Bennet in “Heroes.”
Chris Haston/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
First responders and paramedics were unable to revive Panettiere, and she was reportedly pronounced dead at the scene at 2:32 p.m.
A spokesperson for the Greenville Police Department said in a statement, “The preliminary investigation has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances.”
People reported that the outlet obtained dispatch audio in which officials discussed “overdose” and “cardiac arrest.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to her rep for comment.
Hayden Panettiere and Brian Hickerson on January 31, 2019, in Los Angeles, California.
Getty Images
Panettiere had flown to South Carolina from Los Angeles on Saturday—one day before she died—with her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Brian Hickerson.
Hickerson, who is originally from South Carolina, was first romantically linked to Panettiere in 2018.
In 2019, Hickerson was charged with felony domestic violence and ordered not to contact Panettiere. A judge dismissed the case later that same year.
Brian Hickerson was arrested multiple times for domestic violence during his relationship with Hayden Panettiere.
Teton County Sheriff’s Office
On February 14, Valentine’s Day, in 2020, he was arrested again for allegedly striking Panettiere in the face.
She was granted a restraining order against Hickerson in July 2020.
After initially pleading not guilty, Hickerson pleaded no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend in April 2021. A judge sentenced him to 45 days in prison.
The couple appeared to break up for good in July 2022, according to Page Six, but reportedly began spending time together in 2023, with Hickerson telling the Daily Mail that the two were “friends.”
Hayden Panettiere in “Remember the Titans” at 10 years old.
Walt Disney Studios
“I am coming forward with the truth about what happened to me with the hope that my story will empower others in abusive relationships to get the help they need and deserve,” she wrote in an Instagram post shared on July 17, 2020. “I am prepared to do my part to make sure this man never hurts anyone again.”
In its caption, she offered guidance and suggested resources to those experiencing domestic violence, writing, “For anyone else affected by abuse and needing support, please know that you can call 1-800-799-7233. If you’re unable to speak safely, you can log onto thehotline.org or text LOVEIS to 1-866-331-9474. You are not alone.”
Panettiere was survived by her father, former firefighter Alan “Skip” Panettiere, and her estranged mother and former manager, Lesley Vogel.
Skip wrote about the family’s “unimaginable loss” in a statement shared with ABC News: “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.”
Vogel and Panettiere shared a challenging relationship, which Panettiere detailed in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, published on May 19.
Panettiere, who was a child star, told Shetty in May, “I started [acting] at 8 months old. I can’t even remember a time where everything didn’t revolve around business.”
She said she and her mother sometimes traveled alone for work, and the relationship grew complicated: “I was the only person there. So, I became the confidant and the assistant and the therapist and the shoulder to cry on and everything but her child.”
Lesley Panettiere, Hayden Panettiere, Jansen Panettiere, and Skip Panettiere at the 20th Annual Kids’ Choice Awards in Westwood, California, in March 2007.
F. Micelotta/Getty Images
Panettiere’s younger brother and only sibling, Jansen Panettiere, died on February 19, 2023.
Jansen died at 28 of an enlarged heart coupled with aortic valve complications in his apartment in Nyack, New York.
Wladimir Klitschko and Hayden Panettiere at a fundraising gala in Berlin, Germany, on December 5, 2015.
picture alliance/picture alliance via Getty Image
Panettiere was also survived by her 11-year-old daughter, Kaya Evdokia Klitschko.
She welcomed Kaya in 2014 with her then-fiancé, Ukrainian former professional boxer and world champion Wladimir Klitschko, 50.
After the couple split in 2018, Kaya moved to Ukraine to live with her father.
“There’s been a common misconception that I just gave up my child, when that couldn’t be farther from the truth,” Panettiere told Jay Shetty in May.
Hayden Panettiere with Wladimir Klitschko at the HBO after-party for the 68th annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California, in January 2011.
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
That same month, Panettiere detailed the choice to leave Kaya with Klitschko in an excerpt from her book, published in The Cut, “My Postpartum Addiction: After my daughter’s traumatic birth, alcohol was my only comfort.”
She wrote that her traumatic birth experience left her with anxiety, and she suffered from postpartum depression. When her daughter was four months old, Panettiere “needed a drink to function.”
Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere in “Nashville.”
Chris Hollo/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
She was shooting her hit series, Nashville, at the time, a role that earned her two Golden Globe nominations.
Panettiere entered a treatment center for alcohol addiction between filming the third and the fourth season. She later wrote that, at the center, she was prescribed “powerful” medication to help with her insomnia, but she soon found herself unable to sleep without it.
“I’d walked into rehab addicted to one substance, and I’d walked out completely dependent on something else,” she recalled.
Hayden Panettiere posed holding her belly at the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles in August 2014.
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Because of these events, Panettiere was written off the show.
In July, she told Momé: “I love my daughter, and I’m so proud of the young woman she is becoming. I talk to her all the time, and I feel so connected to her.”
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