Hayden Panettiere was 36 years old and had just published a memoir in which she recounted how she survived abuse.
One day before she died, she boarded a plane from Los Angeles to South Carolina with Brian Hickerson, her on-and-off ex-partner between 2018 and 2022, the same man who was arrested three times for domestic violence and who in 2020 punched her in the face with a closed fist, according to People. In 2021, he served 45 days in jail for it.
On Sunday, August 16, 2026, she was found unresponsive in an apartment at Judson Mill Lofts in Greenville. Police arrived at 1:51 in the afternoon and found no signs of violence, but dispatch audio mentioned a possible overdose and cardiac arrest. There is still no official cause. Panettiere leaves behind a daughter, Kaya, from her relationship with former boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko.
