Hayden Panettiere Dies at 36 After Being Found Unresponsive in SC Apartment

Actress Hayden Panettiere has died at the age of 36 after being found unresponsive at an apartment in South Carolina.

The “Ice Princess” star died in Greenville, S.C., on Aug. 16, just five days before what would have been her 37th birthday.

Her father, Alan Lee “Skip” Panettiere, confirmed the devastating news in a statement provided to ABC News.

“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,” the statement read.

Police and emergency medical personnel responded to a report of an “unresponsive female” in “cardiac arrest” at Judson Mill Lofts in Greenville at 1:51 p.m. on Aug. 16, according to TMZ.

When first responders arrived, they immediately began administering medical assistance. However, Panettiere was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:32 p.m.

According to law enforcement, an acquaintance of the actress placed the 911 call.

The Greenville Police Department later confirmed that an investigation into Panettiere’s death remains ongoing in conjunction with the Greenville County Coroner’s Office.

“The preliminary investigation has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances,” authorities said.

An official cause of death has not yet been announced.

Panettiere had reportedly flown out of Los Angeles with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson on Saturday, one day before her death. However, it remains unclear whether Hickerson was the acquaintance who called 911.

Hickerson, a real estate agent who is originally from South Carolina, was first romantically linked to Panettiere in 2018.

Their tumultuous relationship was marred by allegations of domestic violence, and in 2021, Hickerson served jail time after pleading no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend.

Panettiere addressed their troubled relationship in her 2026 memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” opening up about some of the darkest moments she endured during their time together.

Following the memoir’s release, Hickerson publicly acknowledged his past behavior.
“I got arrested for, you know, abusing her, and I wouldn’t blame her friends for being pissed off at me,” he told TMZ in May.

He also recalled one particularly disturbing incident that Panettiere detailed in the book, admitting that he had asked her not to include the story.

“I was drunk. Hayden was standing across the room and I had a phone in my hand and I said, ‘Uh, Hayden,’ I said, ‘I’ll give you 10 seconds to run as fast as you can before I throw it at you,'” he recalled.

Despite their painful history, Hickerson went on to praise Panettiere’s talent and said he wanted to see her thrive professionally.

“Hayden is one of the most talented people I’ve ever met in my life,” he said, later adding that he wanted “to see what she’s gonna do with the next 30 years of her career.”

Panettiere had also endured profound loss in recent years following the sudden death of her younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, in February 2023.

Jansen was just 28 when he died from an enlarged heart caused by an undiagnosed heart condition.
Panettiere later spoke candidly about the devastating impact her brother’s death had on her, describing him as her only sibling and recalling the enormous grief that followed his passing.

“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 previously told People.

The actress, who had at the time of Jansen’s death gotten sober after struggling for years with alcohol and drug addictions, admitted that she didn’t want to leave the house.

“I had to see horrific paparazzi pictures of myself coming out of Jansen’s funeral, which happened in a very private place, and it was shocking,” she said. “My agoraphobia came out, which is something I’ve struggled with in the past.”

Her body also changed in reaction to the grief and stress, she revealed.

“I just ballooned out,” she said of the weight gain, leading her to feel less confident about going out.

She added, “I will always be heartbroken about it,” she says of the loss of her brother. “I will never be able to get over it.”

The starlet also recently shed new light on her sudden rise to fame as a young girl, revealing in her memoir that, even as her star was ascending up the Hollywood ladder, behind the scenes, she reached new lows as she endured a series of traumatic experiences, or what she refers to as “lifequakes.”

In her memoir, Panettiere noted that her mother taught her at a very early age to cry on demand through a method they called “trigger tears,” a technique that required the actress to think about the most “horrific thing that could happen to an 8-year-old,” from the death of a family pet to the passing of a family member.

The repercussions of this method reverberated through Panettiere’s life, with the actress previously musing: “I’ve often wondered whether—unintentionally—I’ve brought on my traumas because I’m wired to think they’re good for me.”

She also said that her career as a child star, which included roles in several major projects, from “Remember the Titans” to TV hit “Ally McBeal,” led to her being bullied by her peers in middle school—and ultimately prompted her parents to start homeschooling her.

As her career continued to flourish into her teenage years, Panettiere claimed she began to receive unwanted attention of a much more sinister kind, alleging that, at the age of 18, she was invited onto a yacht, where she was placed in a bed alongside a much older male celebrity, who she has not named.

“It was led by somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector and somebody who had my back,” she told podcast host Jay Shetty of the incident.

Panettiere, who shares a daughter, Kaya, with her ex-fiancè, Wladimir Klitschko, also opened up candidly about her struggles with substance abuse later on in life, revealing that members of her team began offering her “happy pills” to quell her nerves ahead of red carpet events when she was just 15 years old.

“They were to make me peppy during interviews,” she recalled. “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.”

The actress went through an eight-month rehabilitation treatment in 2020, an experience that she describes in harrowing detail, revealing that she suffered a host of withdrawal symptoms, including shakes, insomnia, and severe headaches.

In June, the star’s childhood home picturesque childhood home was relisted for $3.6 million.

Even after the “Nashville” star flew the nest, Panettiere’s parents, Alan and Lesley, held onto the abode for many years, only putting it on the market for the first time in 2015, when it was listed with an asking price of $1.8 million—although it would be another six years before it actually sold for the lower price of $1.22 million.

Four years after the Panettiere family moved on from their longtime dwelling, the four-bedroom home, which is known as the French Ivy House, was put back on the market for $4 million—almost two years to the day after the actress’s brother passed away from an undiagnosed heart condition.