Hayden Panettiere, the actress best known for her starring roles in Heroes, Bring It On: All Or Nothing, and Remember the Titans, has died at 36 years old.
From the family:
Her father, Skip, gave a statement to Page Six. “It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden.”
“She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her — and to the millions who watched her onscreen. We ask for privacy as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss.”
What we know so far:
Law enforcement sources confirmed to TMZ that police responded to an incident involving Panettiere on Sunday and that an investigation is currently open. A source told the outlet that the actress had recently “been complaining about back pain in the past year.”
One day prior, TMZ reported Hayden had hopped on a flight out of Los Angeles with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson.
A cause of death has yet to be revealed.
Hayden’s history:
Hayden was born on Aug. 21, 1989, in Palisades, New York. She got her start in Hollywood as a child star. “My introduction to acting was actually at 11 months old,” HP told Entertainment Tonight in 2023. “Playskool Toy Train was my first commercial. But I don’t know if that would really be an introduction to acting, because I don’t think acting was involved at that point. I didn’t have lines – I was just playing.”
Later, HP starred in commercials as an infant before landing gigs on the soap operas One Life to Live in 1994 and Guiding Light in 1996.
While she’s best known for portraying cheerleader Claire Bennet on Heroes and Juliette Barnes on Nashville, she’s also starred in projects like I Love You, Beth Cooper, Ice Princess, Scream 4 & 6, and the TV movie Amanda Knox.
Hayden’s favorite experience of all time was portraying Sheryl Yoast in Remember the Titans. “This movie was my favorite movie to film. What an incredible time in my life. I was 10 years old,” she gushed. “I had such cute boys around me, I was surrounded by the cutest boys.”
“Kate Bosworth was like my big sister, was close to everyone. You have no idea how many times in my life I have wished and prayed — if I had wished to go back to any time in my life, it would be going back to ‘Remember the Titans.’”
The actress also modeled, collaborating on campaigns for companies like Neutrogena, Candie’s and Dooney & Bourke, and sang. She was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1999 for A Bug’s Life, and also contributed music to several soundtracks, including a cover of Cruella De Vil for Disneymania 5, Try for Bridge to Terabithia, and I Still Believe for Cinderella III: A Twist in Time.
Who was Hayden?
Hayden’s personal life often made headlines. Sadly, her only sibling, brother Jansen, unexpectedly died in 2023 at the age of 28. “He was my only sibling, and it was my job to protect him. When I lost him, I felt like I lost half of my soul,” she told People in 2024. “When something that massive has happened to you, you really learn to pick your fights and just not let the little things upset you. Because once something so horrific, so deep, so catastrophic happens in your life, there’s not much that can really rock you.”
Fans also expressed plenty of interest in Hayden’s dating life over the years. In 2009, she struck up a romance with heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, later became engaged, and gave birth to their daughter, Kaya, in 2014. She relinquished custody of her only child amid her struggles with addiction and postpartum depression in 2018. “The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child is heartbreaking. It couldn’t be further from the truth. It became this horrible cycle for years of battling depression and anxiety and alcoholism and substance abuse and just me trying to find my way back.”
Hayden’s struggles:
Hayden admitted that she “completely lost” herself, to the point where her ex-fiancé asked for Kaya to live with him full-time in Ukraine at the age of 2. “I did not have a good reaction to it. I went like mother lion – I would’ve burnt the world down for my child. So that was incredibly difficult.”
In the years before her death, Hayden had been vocal about her struggles with postpartum depression, substance abuse, trauma, being a child star, and more. “I didn’t know where the alcoholism was ending, and the postpartum was beginning. And I ran myself pretty ragged. [I’d been] struggling for a long time. The years before were very difficult for me, too. And I just needed a break.”
Most recently, Hayden opened up about her battles in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, which was released in May. “I had my first identity crisis. I remember exactly where I was, standing in my bedroom at 12 years old playing characters” or sitting in audition rooms. “It’s the most brutal experience, like the stark cold room, and just this row of people judging you.”
“Someone says, ‘You stand on the mark, you get your lines right, I ask you to throw yourself in a building in the middle of the night in the pouring rain’ over and over and over again. These crazy stunts. You’re like, ‘Cool, yeah, sure. No problem’ I just got to an age where I was just so emotional and so upset all the time that I was trying anything to make it OK.”
The actress’s last Instagram post is from July 27. Hayden shared a photo with director/photographer Randall Slavin that was captioned, “Good times and good friends.”
