Hayden Panettiere’s devastated father was still trying to heal from the sudden loss of his son when news broke that the actress had died on Sunday, neighbors said.
Panettiere, a former child star best known for her work on NBC’s Heroes and the country-music drama Nashville, was found dead at an Airbnb in Greenville, South Carolina, in what authorities described as an apparent overdose.
She was 36. Her death comes three years after her younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, died in February 2023 at age 28 from complications linked to an “enlarged” heart.
Their father, Alan “Skip” Panettiere, had withdrawn from his tight-knit community in Piermont, New York, after Jansen’s death, one neighbor told the New York Post.
Another neighbor said he had only recently “seemed like he was starting to come back from it” before learning his daughter had died. According to neighbors, Hayden had visited him just a month earlier.
A friend of the late actress also said she had been planning a trip to Ukraine to see her 11-year-old daughter, Kaya, who lives there with her father, former heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko.
‘She was talking about how she wanted to take a vacation and that she wanted to go and see her daughter,’ Panettiere’s good friend Erick Orellana told Page Six.
“Her daughter was always her absolute priority,” the friend said. “She loved her so much.”
Hayden Panettiere’s father had reportedly been beginning to recover from the 2023 death of his son, Jansen, when he learned that his daughter had died on Sunday. The actress is pictured with her mother, younger brother and father
Panettiere had just visited her father in New York last month. They are pictured together at a LA Lakers game in 2009
Orellana, who has worked as Panettiere’s hairstylist for three years, also emphasized that she ‘loved spending time with Kaya’ and would always show off the preteen’s photos and tell him stories about her daughter.
‘Her daughter was the absolute light of her life,’ he said. ‘She lit up whenever she spoke about her.
‘Everything she did revolved around her,’ Orellana insisted.
Speaking of Panettiere’s passing, the hairstylist added that he ‘can’t imagine that this is anything but accidental because she just loves her daughter and would never have left her.’
Authorities have not yet released a cause of death, but in audio of a 911 call made at 1.51pm Sunday, a female dispatcher described the actress as suffering a ‘cardiac arrest.’
A few moments later, a male dispatcher could be heard saying that Panettiere had suffered a suspected overdose at the home.
The actress, who was due to turn 37 this Friday, was pronounced dead at the scene at 2.32pm, just over 40 minutes after the first 911 call was made.
The Greenville County Coroner’s Office has since completed the star’s autopsy, with the coroner telling Our News Outlet that ‘no signs of trauma were discovered that would have contributed to the death.’
Further investigations will now take place to establish her cause of death, with chief deputy coroner Shelton England telling Our News Outlet that it was too early to discuss the drug overdose theory.
The former child star was found dead at an Airbnb in Greenville, South Carolina on Sunday
Panettiere previously relied on crutches for help walking as she struggled with a painful back injury. She is pictured hobbling at LAX with ex-boyfriend Brian Hickerson in March
The actress had a history of suffering from drug addiction, beginning when she was just 15 years old. At the time, she claimed she started taking ‘happy pills’ in an effort to make her seem more ‘peppy’ during interviews.
Her addiction worsened while she was battling postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter Kaya in 2014.
But Panettiere has been sober in recent years, she said in a 2022 interview, noting that ‘it’s an everyday battle.’
‘It’s an everyday choice, and I’m checking in with myself all the time,’ Panettiere told People at the time. ‘But I’m just so grateful to be part of this world again, and I will never take it for granted again.’
It was just one year after that interview that Panettiere was left grieving the loss of her younger brother.
She was said to be ‘inconsolable’ over her brother’s death, with neighbors telling Our News Outlet that Jansen had been abusing prescription painkillers.
‘There’s nothing in my life that feels like losing my other half. He was born to be the yin to my yang,’ the actress told Jay Shetty in May while holding back tears.
‘We were so close, and especially being the older sibling, it’s your job to protect them and keep them safe, and not being able to is… I mean, heartbreaking doesn’t even begin to cover it.’
Panettiere was said to be ‘inconsolable’ over her brother’s death in 2023
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Panettiere is pictured with her mother
In an interview in May, the actress called her brother her ‘other half’
‘There’s been so many times I want to call him all the time. He was my best friend and when he first died I remember screaming, “I don’t want to live in a world where he doesn’t exist,”‘ Panettiere told the podcaster earlier this year.
‘That’s something I don’t think I’ll ever get over. I feel him with me. I know that he’s protecting me from where he is and was needed elsewhere, but I wish he could be sent back to me.’
Panettiere has also told how she nearly died during childbirth and later gave full custody of Kaya to Klitschko.
Speaking of the decision, Panettiere said she ‘desperately’ needed help at the time and insisted that Kaya does not feel ‘abandoned’ while appearing in the Jay Shetty podcast.
‘The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be okay with it is heartbreaking. Couldn’t be further from the truth,’ the Nashville star insisted.
‘I was struggling with mental health and anxiety and postpartum and having to act my way through it, and just feeling like I completely lost myself,’ she added.
The actress also shared how she struggled with the decision to give Klitschko full custody.
‘It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, nor was it a decision I even wanted to make,’ she said.
‘I was going through a really challenging time in my life… I knew I needed to be able to put her first so that I could get the help I needed and be the mom she needed me to be.’
A close friend of Panettiere’s described how Kaya was always the actress’s priority
Panettiere has previously spoken out about her difficult decision to give her ex, Wladimir Klitschko, custody of their daughter
After giving birth to her daughter in 2014, Panettiere recalled hemorrhaging before she underwent seven blood transfusions and surgery to repair vessels that had begun to fail.
She said: ‘I closed my eyes and just prayed for my daughter to be OK. I truly was ready to go if it was my time. Kaya being safe and healthy was all that mattered.’
However, days later, she recalled feeling ‘nothing’ when looking at her daughter and developed postnatal depression. The actress then turned to drinking.
She said: ‘I turned to wine, which ultimately ended up leading to an alcohol dependency. It was how I would get through each day.’
Although she underwent treatment, Panettiere felt the ‘root cause’ of her drinking, the depression, was not addressed.
‘I wish more people had known what it was at the time. Maybe I wouldn’t have waited so long to get help,’ she said.
Panettiere is remembered for her break-out role as Claire Bennet on NBC’s Heroes
She later starred as Juliette Barnes on the ABC musical drama Nashville
In May, Panettiere released her memoir titled This Is Me: A Reckoning, in which she also detailed being separated from her only child.
‘Not being under the same roof with her every day has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life, and it’s hard to describe the layers of emotion – including sadness, resentment, and anger – I’ve felt because of it,’ she wrote.
‘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 is the greatest gift of my life, with all the best parts of her father and me.’
