Actress Hayden Panettiere was asked to undergo an intervention by her team before her death at age 36, according to director Griff Furst.
Panettiere was found dead of a suspected overdose on Sunday at an Airbnb in Greenville, South Carolina, where she had traveled with her on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson. A newly released police report confirmed Hickerson and his brother Zachary were on the scene when she was pronounced dead, while her autopsy found "no signs of trauma" that "would have contributed to the death."
Griff Furst, who co-directed Panettiere's 2025 film A Breed Apart with his brother Nathan Furst, stated in Instagram videos that the actress was "fighting to stay sober" while working on set. Recounting Hickerson's visit to the set, the 44-year-old filmmaker claimed that when he met with the couple, the "energy in her room was pretty dark" and argued that Panettiere "deserved better company" than what he personally "observed."
A representative for Furst declined a request from the Daily Mail for further comment, while representatives for Panettiere and Hickerson have also been contacted for comment.
Sobriety Struggles and Family Background
Panettiere, who rose to stardom playing cheerleader Claire Bennet on the NBC series Heroes from 2006 to 2010, died at the end of a long struggle with alcohol and opiates. She spent eight months in rehab in 2020 after contracting jaundice, writing in her memoir that her doctor warned "if I didn't stop drinking, I'd be dead within five years."
In 2018, Panettiere voluntarily gave up custody of her daughter Kaya, now 11, to focus on recovering from her personal demons. Kaya was handed over to the care of her father, Ukrainian boxing star Wladimir Klitschko, with whom Panettiere retained an amicable co-parenting bond.
Director Details Proposed Intervention
In an Instagram video posted Wednesday, Furst said he "was rooting for Hayden" to triumph over her addictions. He noted that as a "producer or director" on a movie set, "no matter how certain you are that an actor or a crew member is in a bad situation, you don't have the proof or the benefit of the time to verify it."
Furst explained that leaders on set can only "adjust the schedule, you can collect internal reporting and you can assign a handler to make sure that the individual is being taken care of as best as they can." He alleged that he stayed in contact with "her team" after filming ended, adding that "what eventually got determined was that she might need an intervention, and I was asked to participate and I said yes."
However, "that intervention did not happen, at least not that I'm aware of," Furst said. "And I wasn't leading the charge on that. It wouldn't have been appropriate for me." He recalled that Panettiere "brought" Hickerson to the set of A Breed Apart, noting that "all I know about that is what we observed and wrote down at the time that it happened with her boyfriend Brian Hickerson."
Furst added: "I wasn't in South Carolina. I don't know what happened, but I will say is my opinion and it's only about what I saw on my own set - somebody fighting to stay sober who deserved better company around them than what I observed."
Turbulent Relationship and Police Reports
In a video posted Monday, the day after Panettiere's death, Furst offered a detailed account of Hickerson's appearance on set. Having met Panettiere "about 10 years" before making A Breed Apart, Furst recalled knowing "that she was insanely talented, so when she signed on to do this picture that we were shooting, I was psyched."
Furst recalled hearing from "the movie's security team who picked her up from the airport that something was off." He walked over to greet her and Hickerson, remembering: "He opened the door and Hayden was incredibly sweet and gracious and excited to work, but she was not okay." Furst declined to "get into the details of why that was," but noted that "having worked on over 100 movies and seen just about everything, it was pretty clear that she wasn't okay, and the energy in her room was pretty dark."
Panettiere first took up with Hickerson, a South Carolina native, in 2018 following her split from Klitschko. Hickerson faced multiple domestic violence charges during their turbulent relationship, serving 13 days in prison in 2021 for injuring her.
According to the police report, Hickerson handed authorities a "bag of medication" Panettiere had been taking after she was declared dead on Sunday. While Hickerson's brother Zach was "very emotional" during attempts to revive her, Hickerson claimed to remain impassive until she was pronounced dead.
Estrangement from Mother and Co-Star Memories
Panettiere was also the subject of romance rumors with Zach Hickerson, a pastor, in September 2019 after they were spotted walking hand in hand in New York, where a witness described them as resembling a "real couple." Panettiere later included a blistering account of her history with Brian Hickerson in her memoir, which also detailed her fraught relationship with her mother, Lesley Vogel.
Vogel, who served as Panettiere's manager when she was a child star, told the Daily Mail in May that their estrangement dated back to "around mid-September" of last year. Vogel said at the time: "We each are entitled to choose our path in life," adding that "after 20 years of trauma, chaos, addictions [and] accusations, I felt I had no other option but to choose no contact."
Furst's disclosures come as Justin Chatwin, Panettiere's co-star on her final movie Sleepwalker, recalled how "lonely" she seemed during filming last year. Chatwin told People: "We hit it off great and it was an awesome shoot, but it was about domestic abuse and it was subject matter that may have hit close to home, because she did mention it. She opened up to me about a lot of things."
Chatwin, who noted he has been sober for 15 years, observed that Panettiere was struggling, adding: "I could tell she was struggling, and I was like: 'I don't think it's this movie.' There's a handful of women that I've worked with that I really liked, and I really loved working with her, but I also know that she was really lonely." The Daily Mail has contacted Chatwin's representatives for further comment.
Reflecting on her journey since her time on Heroes, Chatwin noted: "Hayden seemed different when I met her this time than when I met her in the early years. I've been sober for 15 years, so I know this world of addiction, and Hollywood - it takes, and it takes from youth."
Chatwin added: "I'm sure that everyone else is going to say: 'Oh, she's amazing. She's such a sweet person on set,' because she was. But we're trained to be actors, so we're acting on set, you know? And she is sweet. She had a beautiful heart. But we're trained to be on, and I really liked spending time with her because she took that off, and she was authentic with me about her life and she opened up about her struggles with addiction. And who knows where it comes from? Does it come from Hollywood? Does it come from home? And a lot of times, it's both."
