Actress Hayden Panettiere was found unresponsive inside a Greenville, South Carolina apartment five days before her 37th birthday, with 911 audio first pointing to an apparent cardiac arrest before another dispatcher mentioned a suspected overdose.
An “acquaintance” called 911 at 1:51 p.m. Sunday about an “unresponsive female,” according to TMZ. Panettiere, 36, was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:32 p.m. after paramedics administered “advanced cardiac life support” but could not revive her.
Law enforcement officials said there was “no sign of foul play,” and an autopsy was expected Monday to determine the cause and manner of death.
The emergency call landed only months after the “Nashville” star released her memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” which revisited addiction, postpartum depression, abusive relationships, frightening Hollywood encounters and the collapse of the line between Panettiere’s private pain and her TV character’s unraveling.
🚨 UPDATE: Famous actress who exposed Hollywood Hayden Panettiere died of CARDIAC ARREST following a suspected overdose, 911 audio indicates
"No signs of foul play," police said
They tried to resuscitate her, but it was too late.
Heartbreaking 💔
Rest in peace. pic.twitter.com/tqmnhRMJTf
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 17, 2026
Doctors had warned Panettiere she would be dead in five years if she did not stop drinking, she wrote. She most recently spent eight months in rehab for drug and alcohol addiction in 2020.
The actress said “Nashville” became especially punishing because Juliette Barnes’ spiral began to echo her own.
“During the better part of season four, my personal problems were writing the script,” Panettiere wrote. “Juliette Barnes had postpartum depression, an alcohol and pill problem, and a divorce on the horizon. She was erratic, an absentee mother, and fought with everyone — including her fans.”
Hayden Panettiere chatting with Conan O'Brien about her massive height difference with her ex Wladimir Klitschko shows how absurd dating a giant professional athlete actually gets.
Conan O'Brien: What's it like when you guys are out together walking around?
Hayden Panettiere: I… pic.twitter.com/zEgJZbWrdl
— Sooh | (@AbisoyeOfLagos) August 17, 2026
Each script, she wrote, became “like I was looking in a funhouse mirror, seeing a distorted reflection of myself.”
“I can’t tell you how lost this made me feel,” Panettiere wrote.
WATCH: Hayden Panettiere says she was 18 when a woman she trusted as a protector took her below deck on a yacht and physically put her in bed beside an undressed “very famous” man.
“By the time I’d realized I was in danger, I was quite literally out to sea.”
“She physically put… pic.twitter.com/rz5JAyxQo0
— Scott M (@EODWX5) August 17, 2026
She said earlier acting jobs had given her emotional distance from the people she played, but “Nashville” stripped that away.
“I dove headfirst into my own hell,” she wrote. “I was suffering from debilitating anxiety and an addiction I couldn’t shake, and I had to live through it twice. First at home as Hayden, and then in front of millions, as Juliette.”
The physical trouble Panettiere was facing in her final year was visible in March, when she was seen on crutches at LAX with on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson.
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Asked about the crutches, Panettiere said she had “some pinched nerves in my lower back,” but she smiled, gave a thumbs-up and said she was “on the mend” before getting into a black SUV outside the airport.
By May, she told Women’s Health during a barre workout that the problem had begun when she woke up feeling “nothing but pins and needles” from the waist down.
“I’ve been dealing with an injury for the past year,” Panettiere said. “Some nerve damage in my lower back.”
She said she could not bend her toes or lift her foot, and no one had been able to give her “a solid answer.”
“It was like that for so long, that I was sitting there going, ‘Oh my gosh, am I gonna be paralyzed for the rest of my… life?’” Panettiere said. “It’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me physically, for sure.”
Panettiere also used the months before her death to speak about unwanted sexual advances from major Hollywood directors and actors when she was in her late teens.
During a May interview with podcast host Jay Shetty, she said a trusted friend led her into what felt like a trap involving a “very famous” naked man while she was on a boat.
“The fact that I was 18, even though I’d lived such a huge life and I thought I was oh so mature at 18 … scientifically, our frontal lobes don’t develop until we’re what, 25, 26?” Panettiere told Shetty.
She said she did not understand the danger until she was already in it.
“By the time I’d realized I was in danger, I was quite literally out to sea,” Panettiere said.
Her memoir also recounted the toll of becoming a mother in 2014 to daughter Kaya, whom she shared with former fiancé Wladimir Klitschko.
Panettiere said severe postpartum depression and addiction left her unable to care for Kaya at the time, and she signed over full custody to Klitschko so she could seek treatment.
Because Kaya already had an established life in Klitschko’s native Ukraine, Panettiere said the move was in her daughter’s best interest.
Her relationship with Hickerson brought another painful period. The real estate agent and aspiring actor dated Panettiere on and off from around 2018 until 2022 and was arrested multiple times for domestic violence against her.
The first charges were later dropped after a 2019 arrest and another in February 2020 in Wyoming, where he reportedly punched her in the face.
Hickerson was arrested again in Los Angeles in July 2020 and pleaded no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend. In 2021, he was sentenced to jail time, four years of probation, domestic violence classes, fines and a multi-year protective order.
Panettiere called the relationship traumatic and said verbal arguments escalated into physical abuse. She also described the situation as “very embarrassing” because she had viewed herself as strong and resilient.
In May, Hickerson told TMZ that Panettiere was the most talented person he had ever met, but said they “probably wouldn’t be good together.”
The actress had already endured another sudden family loss before her own death. Her younger brother, Jansen, died in February 2023 at age 28 from cardiomegaly, an enlarged heart, coupled with aortic valve complication.
Panettiere’s career began in commercials when she was 11 months old and later carried her through “Heroes,” where she played Claire Bennet, a high school cheerleader with healing powers.
She earned two Golden Globe nominations for “Nashville” and appeared in “Remember the Titans,” “Raising Helen,” “Ice Princess,” “Bring It On: All or Nothing” and “Scream 4.”
Her representatives announced her death late Sunday with a statement remembering the actress behind those roles.
“It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden,” they stated.
“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.”