
September 22nd, 2026
Hayden Panettiere, the actor, died from an accidental overdose involving multiple drugs, among them fentanyl, a coroner in South Carolina announced on Tuesday.
Panettiere, aged 36, was discovered unresponsive in an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, on Aug. 16.
Present at the residence were her on-and-off boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, and his brother, Zach Hickerson.
According to a statement from the Greenville County Coroner’s Office, a combination of fentanyl and its chemical byproduct, along with the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam, a muscle relaxer, and a drug used to treat major depression and other serious mental health disorders, was found in Panettiere’s system.
The office's initial release did not encompass further details from the autopsy report.
When approached for a statement regarding the coroner’s report, Kasey Kitchen, a publicist representing the family, remarked that “the investigation is still ongoing and the case is complex.”
Greenville Police confirmed on Tuesday that their investigation into Panettiere’s death is still ongoing.
Paramedics had responded to Panettiere’s apartment the previous month following a 911 call, administering CPR and other advanced resuscitation measures for over 40 minutes before she was pronounced dead.
An autopsy revealed no indications of trauma that might have contributed to her death, Greenville County Coroner Mike Ellis stated in a statement.
The police report released after her death listed the medications Panettiere was taking, but the drug names were redacted.
Panettiere rose to fame through the TV shows “Heroes” and “Nashville.”
In her memoir “This Is Me,” released in May, Panettiere wrote about lifelong scars from her early fame and admitted to being addicted to alcohol and suffering postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter, Kaya, with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014.
She additionally endured familial turmoil and tragedy.
Her parents' marriage grew increasingly strained before ultimately dissolving.
Her younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, himself an actor, succumbed to a heart condition in 2023, at the age of 28.
Panettiere also discussed her lengthy relationship with Brian Hickerson, along with allegations that the aspiring actor had physically abused her.
In 2020, he faced multiple counts of felony abuse; he ultimately pleaded no contest to two counts of injuring a spouse or partner, for which he served a brief jail term.
He was subsequently sentenced to four years of probation, alongside anger management and Alcoholics Anonymous sessions.
Hickerson completed the terms and recently petitioned a judge to have his conviction reduced to misdemeanors; that request was denied.
Panettiere was one of two children born to Skip Panettiere, a former New York City fire captain, and Lesley Vogel, a former soap opera star.
She acted in commercials and soap operas, including as the ever-troubled Lizzie Spaulding on “Guiding Light.”
In “This Is Me,” she wrote that the traumas her character endured, from being kidnapped to killing her mother’s boyfriend, led her to associate “catastrophe with adoration.”
She subsequently portrayed a cheerleader endowed with supernatural abilities in “Heroes,” a role that catapulted her to stardom in 2006.
By 2015, Panettiere was playing a brash country upstart opposite Connie Britton on “Nashville,” a show that aired on ABC for four seasons before it was canceled and then revived on CMT.
She did her own singing on the show, which scored some hits on the country charts, led to U.S. tours and earned Panettiere two Golden Globe nominations for supporting actress.
Yet she also disclosed that she found herself trapped in a vicious cycle of relying on alcohol and drugs to combat her depression and anxiety, and that she had to discover an escape from that darkness.
She checked into rehab while the show was still in production.
"I was the one who committed myself to the first treatment center.
I was drowning," she remarked in a 2023 interview with Women's Health magazine.
September 22nd, 2026

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