Hayden Panettiere, the star of television series such as Heroes and Nashville, has died. She was 36
Her father, Skip Panettiere, announced her death in a statement to ABC News on Sunday
“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,” it read
Her cause of death has not been announced and is under investigation, her publicist, Kasey Kitchen, told NBC News
Police were called to an address in Greenville, S.C., at about 1:50 p.m. Sunday, where Panettiere was found unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene, the U.S agency reported
There were no signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances, police said in a statement Monday, the Associated Press wrote, adding that the The Greenville County Coroner’s Office was performing an autopsy
Panettiere, who was turning 37 on Friday, began acting at the age of four, appearing in soap operas and TV commercials
Her role as a cheerleader with superpowers in Heroes propelled her to fame in 2006, with the series revolving around the mantra “Save the cheerleader, save the world.”
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She went on to win three Teen Choice Awards for that role and was a Grammy Award nominee for a children’s spoken word album recorded a few years after the release of the animated movie A Bug’s Life. She later received two supporting actress nominations at the Golden Globes for her role as Juliette Barnes in Nashville
The actor, who published her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning in May, had spoken publicly about her struggles with addiction and postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014. He has had full custody of the child since 2018
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“I think there’s been this very common misconception that I just gave up my child,” she told podcaster Jay Shetty in an interview earlier this year. “That could not be farther from the truth.”
Panettiere said Klitschko suggested their daughter live with him full-time in Ukraine when the child was two, as she struggled with her mental health and addiction
She told Shetty she was in a “horrible cycle for years of battling depression and anxiety and alcoholism and substance abuse” while “just trying to find my way back, my way out of the darkness.”
She checked herself into rehab in 2015, while filming Nashville
In recent years, she had been in a tumultuous relationship with Brian Hickerson, with whom she split and reconciled several times
Panettiere also appeared in two Scream films, starred in the 2000s films Ice Princess and Bring It On: All or Nothing and as the title character in the 2009 film I Love You Beth Cooper.She also played the young daughter of a football coach in Remember the Titans
Her younger brother, Jansen, who was an actor, died of a heart condition in 2023 at age 28
In her memoir, Panettiere described herself as an “optimist to the core” who refused to be defined by tragedy
“One thing I know from my 36 years in the public eye is this: Life is a process that evolves day by day, year by year and — like it or not — you are engaged in a cycle of growth until the moment you take your last breath,” she wrote
— with files from The Associated Press
