Actress Hayden Panettiere has been pronounced dead aged 36 after emergency services found her unresponsive at an apartment block in Greenville, South Carolina.
Detectives confirmed to the Daily Mail that they responded to the Judson Mill Lofts apartment block after receiving a 911 call from an "acquaintance" describing Panettiere as "unresponsive". At 1.51pm, a female dispatcher described her as suffering a "cardiac arrest", before a male dispatcher stated she was suspected of overdosing at the Greenville home. Officers and paramedics carried out chest compressions in an effort to save her life.
Panettiere, who was due to turn 37 this Friday, was pronounced dead at the scene at 2.32pm, just over 40 minutes after responders arrived. The Greenville County Sheriff's Office said an autopsy found no signs of trauma, with further tests required to determine her cause of death. Chief Deputy Coroner Shelton England told the Daily Mail it was too early to discuss the suspected overdose theory. The actress and her on-off real estate agent boyfriend Brian Hickerson had flown from Los Angeles to South Carolina, where he is from, one day before she died.
Panettiere was best known for her television roles as cheerleader Claire Bennet in the NBC superhero series Heroes and country singer Juliette Barnes in the musical drama series Nashville. Her death came just three months after the release of her memoir, "This Is Me: A Reckoning", which was published in the UK and US on May 19 for £22 in hardback. The book detailed her struggles with postpartum depression, substance addiction, and her decision to give up custody of her only child.
Yacht Incident and Allegations
In her memoir, Panettiere recounted a troubling incident that occurred when she was 19 years old. A friend invited her to the south of France in 2009 to stay on a "super yacht" that had been hired for a week. During the trip, the friend instructed Panettiere to follow her downstairs into a cabin.
Inside the room, Panettiere said she "saw a famous thirtysomething British singer songwriter lying in a bed", shirtless and covered by bedsheets from the waist down. Her friend whispered in her ear: "I want you to get in bed with him. He has a huge d***." Although Panettiere initially complied before her friend left, she quickly felt her heart pounding.
Panettiere told the unnamed musician: "Look… I don't know what she said to you, but this is not going to happen." She jumped out of the bed, ran down the hallway to her room, booked a hotel, packed her bags, and left. Reflecting on the ordeal, she wrote that her friend had "confided in me, pampered me and treated me like her best friend, then turned around and treated me like a call girl."
Panettiere also detailed an incident months earlier, when she was still 19, involving an "Oscar winning actor and director" who exposed himself to her at a private party organised by the same friend. While conversing with a group of men "in their forties and fifties", Panettiere said she "sensed these men's eyes on me and it made me uncomfortable", feeling like a "young commodity ripe for the picking".
When she decided to leave and put on her coat, the unidentified man approached her, claiming to have a "big wad of gum on his pants". Panettiere wrote: "I looked down and recoiled. This well-respected, award-winning actor's testicles were hanging out from his unzipped fly." She did not report the incident to her friend at the time, believing "the moment had passed" and assuming "some older men had just grown up with no manners".
Postpartum Depression and Addiction Battles
Panettiere gave birth to her daughter Kaya in 2014 at the age of 25. Following the birth, the actress began haemorrhaging and required seven blood transfusions alongside surgery to repair failing blood vessels. In the months that followed, she suffered severe postpartum depression, a mood disorder that can affect women after childbirth, and found herself unable to bond with her newborn daughter.
"I'd always heard that mothers feel an instant rush of love the moment they lay their eyes on their baby, but I felt nothing," Panettiere wrote in her book. She struggled to soothe Kaya and lost her "natural optimism and pep". Recalling an instance where she feared she had accidentally hurt Kaya while taking her out of the bath, she explained: "It wasn't panic that was sitting in my chest. It was nothing. A total blackout of emotion, like my soul was dead. I wasn't myself, yet the problem was I didn't know what I was supposed to be."
When Kaya was four months old, Panettiere was diagnosed with postpartum depression and began receiving medical treatment. However, the prescription medications created new complications. While the drugs kept her from "cracking", she described feeling like a "zombie", noting: "They had a catch: if I didn't take them, I couldn't sleep. If I did, I slept too much."
Panettiere admitted: "I walked into rehab addicted to one substance, and I walked out, completely dependent on something else." She described how "anxiety buzzed inside me like a fluorescent light", leaving her "keeping me reactive, on edge and full of dread".
To cope with her depression, Panettiere turned to alcohol, recalling how she once filled a glass so full of wine that it "almost overflowed". Her dependence escalated when she resumed filming for the TV drama series Nashville, where she required a drink every morning just to function.
"It's 6am and I'm trying to get drunk," she wrote. "The first thing I'd thought of when I woke up was alcohol. Not my child, not my job, and not the rest of my life. I needed a drink to function - at 6am - and that was f*****." She added: "If I didn't get some help as soon as possible, I was f*****." Reflecting on her struggles, she expressed grief for "all the hours I lose to addiction, my broken relationships and my loved ones who are no longer here."
Relinquishing Custody of Her Daughter
In 2018, Panettiere made the decision to sign over full custody of Kaya, then aged three, to her ex-fiance Wladimir Klitschko, the 50-year-old Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2017. With her ongoing battles with substance addiction and mental health, Kaya went to live full-time with her father, who resided in a different country.
"I remember every second of that day. Every f***** second. No mother could forget a single thing about the day she signed her child away," Panettiere wrote. Though she possessed the financial resources to engage in a legal fight, she feared a custody battle would destroy her while she was in recovery.
Following the decision, Panettiere chose not to attend celebrations for the series finale of Nashville, stating: "I couldn't pretend that this chapter of my life was something to memorialise." She subsequently sold her Nashville house, leaving her with "no work, no plan for work anytime soon, no boyfriend, and no Kaya to care for."
Panettiere described the eight years following the custody arrangement as "the most gut-wrenching experience of my life", writing about the complex emotions of sadness, resentment, and anger. "I grieve that I'm not the mother I thought I'd be and definitely not the mother I want to be (trust me, no one should ever have to raise a child on FaceTime), and although I miss Kaya so much my heart aches, I know how blessed I am to be her mom," she shared. "She is the greatest gift of my life, with all the best parts of her father and me, and, today, I believe I have the opportunity to be a different kind of parent than most."
Personal Responsibility and Future Outlook
Panettiere stressed in her writing that she took full responsibility for her maternal shortcomings and harboured no blame toward Klitschko, whom she called "one of the most courageous people I've ever met and a true hero in so many ways." She explained her decision to limit public comments about her daughter, noting that Kaya "didn't ask to be born into the limelight or my chaos, and she didn't get to choose her parents."
Panettiere wrote: "I want her to have every choice that I didn't, including the ability to live a private life. So out of respect for her right to normalcy, my stories of motherhood will be through my eyes only, and I'll keep personal details of her life to a minimum." She added: "I also want to make clear that I don't blame Wlad for any of my wrongs; I take full responsibility for my part in our relationship and my shortcomings as a mom."
Reflecting on her years in treatment, Panettiere maintained a positive outlook on her progress prior to her death. "Life can shake you up and tear you down, but even when you're at your worst, there's hope and you have an opportunity to rebuild," she wrote, stating that she had "concluded that the only thing I can change is myself and the person I want to be."
She also referenced the concept of "lifequakes", a term popularised by author Bruce Feiler in his book Life Is in the Transitions to describe major unexpected personal crises. Panettiere wrote: "I'm far from perfect, but my life quakes and moments of struggle are little miracles that have helped me grow."
