Hayden Panettiere was 36 years old and spoke about the future.
In May, sitting across from Jay Shetty to promote her memoir “This Is Me: A Reckoning”, she said something that today is impossible to read without chills: “I finally feel like I freed myself from all this darkness and negativity… I feel like I have a lot of life ahead of me”.
Behind that statement were years of postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter Kaya, an abuse she suffered at age 18 on a yacht and the grief over her brother Jansen, who died in 2023 at 28.
She had closed one door, she said, and another was opening. She felt exciting possibilities lay ahead. Three months later, on August 16, her father Skip Panettiere confirmed her death in a statement that described her as “a force of nature”. No cause or circumstances were revealed.
The interview that was meant to mark her rebirth ended up being, without anyone knowing it at the time, her farewell.