Just weeks before her untimely passing at the age of 36, Hayden Panettiere shared a heartfelt Instagram post with a friend, joyfully celebrating “good times and good friends.”
Panettiere, cherished for her standout performances on NBC’s hit show Heroes and the musical drama Nashville, was hailed as “an incredible light and a force of nature” following the announcement of her passing over the weekend.
On Sunday, her representatives released a statement expressing their sorrow: “It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden.” The exact circumstances surrounding her death remain unclear.
In her final Instagram post, shared two weeks ago, she was pictured enjoying an evening alongside her friend, director, and photographer Randall Slavin.
Accompanying the black-and-white photograph was a simple yet poignant caption: “Good times and good friends @randallslavin ✨.”
After Panettiere’s death, Slavin paid tribute on his Instagram Stories, sharing the star’s post and writing, ‘Peace be with you, H.’
Her final post has now been flooded with comments from her celebrity friends and fans reacting to the sad news of her death.
Hayden Panettiere posed with a pal in her last Instagram post before her unexpected death at the age of 36 as she celebrated ‘good times and good friends’
Panettiere, known for her roles on the hit series Heroes and drama Nashville, was remembered as ‘an incredible light and a force of nature’ as her death was announced over the weekend
‘I love you. Don’t be gone. Don’t be gone. Please. Please,’ an anguished Selma Blair wrote under the picture.
‘I love you whale tail my friend,’ Blair wrote in another comment 11 minutes later.
Blair returned minutes later with another sorrowful comment. ‘I’m dying. Please be here,’ she wrote.
On Sunday her cause of death was not immediately clear. But law enforcement sources confirmed to TMZ that police responded to an incident involving the actress and an investigation is ongoing.
‘There’s an investigation ongoing,’ her representative added in a statement to NBC News. ‘We should know more tomorrow.’
Sources also told TMZ that Panettiere had been recently complaining of back pain and that she and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, flew from Los Angeles to the south just one day before her tragic passing.
The Hollywood star earned multiple award nominations across her career, most notably while playing cheerleader Claire Bennet on Heroes and Juliette Barnes on Nashville.
Panettiere, who was set to turn 37 on Friday, also appeared in the Scream franchise as Kirby Reed, and lent her voice to the video games Until Dawn and Kingdom Hearts.
Panettiere is predeceased by her brother, Jansen, who passed away in February 2023 from ‘an enlarged heart’ at the age of 28.
After Panettiere’s death, Slavin paid tribute on his Instagram Stories, sharing the star’s post and writing, ‘Peace be with you, H’
‘I love you. Don’t be gone. Don’t be gone. Please. Please,’ an anguished Selma Blair wrote under the picture
Rosie O’Donnell was among the stars registering their heartbreak over news of Panettiere’s death
She played Juliette Barnes on the ABC show Nashville, releasing a number of her own songs (seen with co-star Connie Britton)
Panettiere leaves behind an 11-year-old daughter with ex, Wladimir Klitschko
She said that she felt like she ‘lost half of her soul’ following his death, and revealed that the stress of his loss resulted in her body ‘ballooning out’, which left her in a ‘really bad’ and ‘destructive’ place.
The tragic news of her death comes just months after her memoir, This is Me: A Reckoning, became a New York Times best-seller.
In the book, Panettiere described how she contended with fame and handled the difficulties in her life.
She had suffered from drug addiction, beginning when she was just 15 years old.
At the time, she claimed she started taking ‘happy pills’ in an effort to make her seem more ‘peppy’ during interviews.
Her addiction then became worse while she was battling postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter Kaya in 2014.
But Panettiere has been sober in recent years, she said in a 2022 interview, noting that ‘it’s an everyday battle’.
‘It’s an everyday choice, and I’m checking in with myself all the time,’ Panettiere told People at the time.
‘But I’m just so grateful to be part of this world again, and I will never take it for granted again.’
Panettiere has also told how she nearly died during childbirth, and later relinquished custody of her daughter to her ex, former heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko, while struggling with postpartum depression in 2018.
Her daughter now lives in Europe.
Speaking of the decision, Panettiere said she ‘desperately’ needed help at the time and insisted that Kaya does not feel ‘abandoned’ while appearing in a recent episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast.
‘The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be okay with it is heartbreaking. Couldn’t be further from the truth,’ Panettiere said.
‘I was struggling with mental health and anxiety and postpartum and having to act my way through it, and just feeling like I completely lost myself,’ she added.
Panettiere has also come out as bisexual while she promoted her new book.
‘It’s sad that I had to wait till I was 36 years old to share that part of me, but better late than never, right?’ the Nashville alum told Us Weekly in May.
‘I’ve chosen to share it with the world, I’m comfortable saying I’m bisexual. I’m comfortable to confidently say that, yes, I am bisexual. I said it!’
Despite having little privacy due to ‘paparazzi always outside waiting for me,’ Panettiere still managed to secretly date women, whom she preferred to men from ‘a very, very young age.’
‘[I was] much more into women,’ the two-time Golden Globe nominee said.
‘But, yeah, I have explored it, but I don’t think I ever had the courage, because I hadn’t shared this with anybody.
‘I didn’t really have the courage to throw myself fully, emotionally into it, because then if I did fall in love, that wasn’t something that I wanted to ever have to hide. I didn’t feel confident enough, and I was too afraid to really let that part of me explore that part of me.’
By the age of 19, Panettiere dissolved her business relationship with her manager mother.
Panettiere was born on August 21, 1989 in Palisades, New York.
She first started acting at just 11 months old, appearing in a commercial.
Her full-time acting career then began in 1994 when she played Sarah Roberts in the ABC soap opera One Life to Live until 1997. She then went on to play Lizzie Spaulding in the CBS soap opera Guiding Light from 1996 to 2000.
For her role on Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, she was nominated for a Young Artist Award and Grammy Award, making her the fifth-youngest nominee for a Grammy.
Her other credits include Remember the Titans, Ally McBeal, Racing Stripes, Ice Princess and I Love You, Beth Cooper.
But it was her role as a cheerleader with superpowers in Heroes that propelled her to fame in 2006, with the series revolving around the mantra: ‘Save the cheerleader, save the world’.
She won three Teen Choice Awards for the role.
Panettiere has also recorded a number of songs for the films and television programmes she was in, including My Hero is You for the Disney Channel film Tiger Cruise and I Fly for the Disney film Ice Princess, which she co-starred in with the late Michelle Trachtenberg.
Her first single not associated with an acting role, the reggae-infused Wake Up Call, was digitally released on August 5, 2008.
Clothing brand Candie’s announced it was premiering an ad campaign for the single in late July of that year, and provided additional promotion for the song with a television ad and a music video starring Sebastian Stan, who played Panettiere’s brother in The Architect.
Panettiere later played a brash country upstart opposite Connie Britton on Nashville, which aired on ABC for four seasons before being canceled and revived on CMT.
She did her own singing for the show, earning her some hits on the country charts as well as two supporting actress Golden Globe nominations.
In total, Panettiere had 11 songs recorded for Nashville appear on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs charts during the show’s run, including two featuring Britton.
Following the news of her death, actor Randall Slavin shared a photo of him with Panettiere, writing: ‘Peace be with you.’
She had shared the same photo just two weeks prior, with the caption, ‘Good times and good friends’.
Actress Selma Blair also wrote on Instagram: ‘I love you. Don’t be gone. Don’t be gone. Please,’ while Melissa Barrera posted to her Instagram story: ‘Rest in peace sweet Hayden.’
SAG-AFTRA added that it ‘mourns the sudden passing of Hayden Panettiere’.