Hayden Panettiere, who became a household name as a teenager for her role in Heroes and later starred in Nashville and multiple Scream films, has died at age 36. Panettiere was pronounced dead at a South Carolina apartment Sunday, August 16. A cause of death has not been revealed, but an autopsy showed no signs of trauma.
Toxicology reports are pending and could take up to 12 weeks, according to the Greenville County Coroner’s Office. An investigation is reportedly being conducted into Panettiere’s death involving Greenville police as well as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after an incident report stated that her on-off boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, turned over a “bag of medication” to police.
Panettiere was best-known for playing Sheryl Yoast in the 2000 Denzel Washington-led film Remember the Titans, high school cheerleader Claire Bennet on NBC’s sci-fi drama Heroes (2006-2010), and aspiring country singer Juliette Barnes on the hit TV series Nashville (2012-2018). Her New York Times bestselling memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, was published in May this year, in which she looked back at her childhood in Hollywood and her experiences with addiction, postpartum depression (which she claimed cost her a sponsorship with skincare brand Neutrogena), abusive relationships, and the loss of custody of her daughter, Kaya, whom she shares with former heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko. Brian Hickerson has broken his silence following Hayden Panettiere’s death, issuing his first statement through his lawyer, Sloan Ellis.
He showed responding officers a bag of medication Panettiere had been taking, while authorities later said an autopsy found no signs of trauma. The DEA has since joined the investigation, and Panettiere’s cause and manner of death remain pending. Hickerson also has a history of domestic violence against Panettiere and pleaded no contest to two felony charges involving her in 2021.
Panettiere’s daughter moved to Ukraine to live with her father, boxer Wladimir Klitschko, in 2018, when Russia had illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and separatist forces were fighting Ukrainian troops in the Donbas region. When Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022, Klitschko, whose brother Vitalii is the mayor of Kyiv and also a former boxing champion, enlisted in the army. Kaya, the outlet reported, was not in Ukraine from the early days of the war.
Panettiere posted repeated messages of solidarity with Ukraine on Instagram in the years that followed. What Putin is doing is an absolute disgrace!,” she wrote on Instagram shortly after the invasion. Ice Princess director Tim Fywell has paid tribute to Hayden Panettiere, recalling the actor’s dedication while making the 2005 Disney film alongside Michelle Trachtenberg.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
