Brian Hickerson, the on-and-off boyfriend of Hayden Panettiere, has issued a statement through his legal team following the actress’s death.
The response comes four days after Panettiere, 36, was discovered unresponsive inside an apartment in South Carolina.
“Hayden’s death remains under investigation and it is important to allow that investigation to proceed,” Hickerson’s attorney, Sloan Ellis of the Ellis Hinton law firm, told TMZ.
Ellis added that, as previously reported, police have said there were no signs of foul play.
“Out of respect for Hayden’s loved ones and the ongoing investigation, there will be no further comment at this time,” the statement continued.
Police confirmed Tuesday that Hickerson, 37, was present at the apartment where Panettiere died, as was his brother, Zach Hickerson.
According to a police report, a Greenville officer responding to the residence on Sunday afternoon was met by the two brothers before seeing paramedics performing CPR on an unresponsive woman.
The officer wrote that “the patient did not seem to have any obvious physical reasons to be unresponsive.” After emergency personnel attempted lifesaving measures, Panettiere was pronounced dead at 2:31 p.m.
Hayden Panettiere’s on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson has addressed the star’s death through his lawyers. Panettiere is pictured with Hickerson in Los Angeles on December 1, 2018
The Greenville County Coroner’s Office has said Panettiere’s cause of death remains under investigation, however a dispatcher said she had a ‘cardiac arrest’ during a 911 call from her apartment.
The dispatcher could be heard in the audio saying that Panettiere had suffered a suspected overdose, and sources told TMZ that Narcan – a nasal medication used to treat an opioid overdose – was also found on a mattress at the property.
Panettiere, who soared to fame in the TV shows ‘Heroes’ and ‘Nashville’ while enduring struggles with alcohol addiction and depression, would have turned 37 on Friday.
She first began dating Hickerson in 2018, however, their on-off relationship became tumultuous as he was arrested several times on domestic violence charges.
Panettiere had spoken of her troubled childhood in the spotlight in recent months, and revealed intimate details of her relationship with Hickerson in her memoir published three months before her death.
She had an 11-year-old daughter with her ex-partner Wladimir Klitschko, a former boxer turned Ukrainian government official who has full custody of the youngster.
In her memoir, titled This Is Me: A Reckoning, Panettiere alleged that Hickerson once beat her so severely that she had to remain in her house for weeks to keep her injuries from the public.
She said she tried to keep the alleged abuse from the police because she feared the public would find out, and described her relationship as a ‘very dark and complicated time in my life.’
Hayden Panettiere’s on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother were in the South Carolina apartment where the actress suffered a fatal heart attack on Sunday, police say
The Heroes star’s on-off boyfriend Hickerson was in the apartment where she died alongside his brother Zach (above together)
Hickerson was arrested for one alleged incident in May 2019, and court records show he was charged with injuring a spouse or girlfriend.
He pleaded no contest to the allegations in April 2021, and he was sentenced to 45 days in county jail and four years’ probation.
Just three days before Panettiere’s death, Hickerson’s request to reduce his past felony charges was denied by a judge.
Panettiere’s relationship with Hickerson appeared to end in 2020, and in July of that year she filed for a restraining order against him. The outcome of her request is not stated in court records.
The Greenville Police Department said in a statement that ‘the preliminary investigation’ into Panettiere’s death ‘has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances’.
An autopsy found ‘no signs of trauma were discovered that would have contributed to the death.’
