Heroes and Scream star Hayden Panettiere dies aged 36
Heroes actress Hayden Panettiere has died aged 36.
A representative for the star confirmed the tragic news in a statement to PEOPLE.
The statement read: “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.”
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Speaking to ABC News, her father Skip Panettiere asked for privacy as the ‘family takes time to process this unimaginable loss’.
No further details surrounding her death have been shared at this stage.
Panettiere appeared on screen for the first time at just 11 months old in a commercial. From there, she began acting in 1994 after securing a role on the soap One Life to Live at just four years old, before moving to rival soap Guiding Light in 1996, where she remained until 2000.
At just nine years old she made her feature film debut, as the narrator and voice of Princess Dot in A Bug's Life, for which she nominated for a Young Artist Award and Grammy Award, and later lent her voice to video game Until Dawn.
However, she’s perhaps best-known for the role of Claire Bennet, a high school cheerleader with healing powers, on the hit NBC series Heroes.
She later played Juliette Barnes on the musical drama Nashville, earning herself several award nominations and appearing in six seasons of the popular show.
Panettiere also made several appearances on the big screen, with roles in Scream 4, Remember the Titans, and Raising Helen.
The difficult decision to give up full custody of her daughter
In May this year, she released a memoir titled This Is Me: A Reckoning, in which she opened up about being 'groomed' as a child actor, as well as her struggles with postpartum depression, addiction and recovery.
And it was these struggles that the star said helped her make the difficult decision to give up custody of her only daughter, Kaya, who she shares with her former partner and professional boxer Wladimir Klitschko, in 2018.
Speaking on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast just weeks ago, Panettiere said she was initially against the idea when her ex partner suggested it.
“That was incredibly difficult. The fact that my child wasn’t going to be with me all day every day was just ... you can’t put words to it,” she said.
However, she changed her mind after realising how stressful it was for the youngster to travel back and forth between the US and Ukraine and seeing what a ‘beautiful life’ she had out there.
Panettiere stayed in regular contact with her child before her death.
Her brother's tragic death aged 28
In 2024, Panettiere spoke about the grief she felt following the sudden loss of her younger brother Jansen the year before.
Jansen passed away aged 28 due to an undiagnosed heart condition, leaving his sister devastated.
"I think it's something that transforms over time," she told TODAY in 2024.
"Maybe the five stages of grief is for people who have had a heartbreak or find out some bad news. Like, yes, there are five stages, but there's so much more in between.
“When you lose somebody that you saw in all the important moments in your life, standing right next to you, it just rocks your world.”
A timeline of Hayden Panettiere’s troubled Hollywood career
August 1989
Hayden Panettiere is born to firefighter Skip Panettiere and Lesley Vogel, who would go on to be Hayden’s manager.
1990
Panettiere appears in a commercial at 11 months old, later landing recurring roles in soap operas as a child actor.
2004/2005
Aged 15, Panettiere said someone on her team started offering her ‘happy pills’. She later tells People: “They were to make me peppy during interviews.
"I had no idea that this was not an appropriate thing, or what door that would open for me when it came to my addiction.”
2006
Aged 17, Panettiere lands one of the defining roles of her career as Claire Bennett in Heroes.
2007-2009
Panettiere later reveals several disturbing incidents that happened during this period in her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning.
Aged 18, she claims she was led onto a yacht by ‘somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector’ and placed into bed next to an ‘undressed man who was very famous’.
In 2008, she alleged a network executive kissed her on the lips at a party.
Aged 19, she said a ‘well-respected, award-winning actor’ tricked her into looking at his testicles through an unzipped fly.
In 2007, she also starts dating Heroes co-star Milo Ventimiglia - she is 18 and he is 30. They split in 2009.
2009
Panettiere starts dating Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko.
Meanwhile, her father Skip is handed two years of informal probation after pleading ‘no contest’ to spousal battery.
2013
Panettiere and Klitschko get engaged.
December 2014
Panettiere and Klitschko’s daughter Kaya is born. Panettiere endures an incredibly difficult pregnancy, haemorrhaging during her c-section and being forced to undergo a three-hour surgery.
2015
Panettiere begins suffering severe post-partum depression. She later tells Jay Shetty on his On Purpose podcast: “I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. I wasn't connecting with [Kaya] the way I should be.”
She uses alcohol to manage her mental health struggles and enters treatment when Kaya is four months old.
She later says she became dependent on medication to sleep, and then turned to drinking vodka.
2018
Klitschko presents Panettiere with custody papers asking for full custody of Kaya. After initially fighting back, she eventually accepts and Kaya goes to live with Klitschko in Ukraine.
She writes in her memoir: “Not being under the same roof with her every day has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life”
Meanwhile, her long-running role in TV show Nashville comes to an end and she doesn’t have any more TV or film roles for five years.
In the same year, she starts dating actor Brian Hickerson.
2020
Panettiere spends an eight month stint in rehab.
She experiences brutal alcohol withdrawal symptoms including insomnia and intense headaches.
Meanwhile, her now-ex Hickerson is charged with felony assault.
2021
Hickerson pleads no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse/cohabitant/girlfriend/child's parent and is sentenced to 45 days in jail and four years probation.
2023
Panettiere returns to acting, reprising her role as Kirby Reed in Scream VI.
In the same year, her brother Jansen dies aged 28 from an enlarged heart.
May 2026
Panettiere releases her memoir in which she makes disturbing allegations against film stars and industry execs from when she was a teenager.
She also opens up on her experience of postpartum depression and comes out as bisexual.
August 2026
Panettiere tragically dies. Police say: “The preliminary investigation has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances.”
Topics: Celebrity News, Entertainment, US News, Hayden Panettiere
Claire Reid