Hayden Panettiere struggled with debilitating back pain and could barely move her legs in the months before she went into cardiac arrest at a rented apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, and the cause of her death remains under investigation.
Paramedics responded to a 911 call on Sunday afternoon for an "unidentified female" in cardiac arrest at an Airbnb rental inside the Judson Mill Lofts apartment complex. They administered advanced cardiac life support and chest compressions, but the 36-year-old actress was pronounced dead at 2:32 p.m., Page Six reported.
The Greenville County Coroner's Office completed an autopsy and found no signs of trauma. The investigation remains active. No official cause of death has been released.
Her father, Skip Panettiere, confirmed the news in a statement:
"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. We ask for privacy as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss."
Erick Orellana, a hairdresser and close friend of Panettiere's, told Page Six that the actress had been dealing with serious health problems earlier this year. He described her pain as really severe.
"I know she suffered earlier this year with her back. At one point, it was even hard for her to move her legs."
Panettiere was photographed in March at Los Angeles International Airport using crutches. Her boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, was with her at the time. A friend later noted she appeared to be on the mend.
A second unnamed source painted a slightly different picture, telling Page Six that Panettiere sometimes seemed worn down but that it was easy to chalk up to her schedule.
"Earlier this year, she did seem a little tired at times. But she was a night owl, and... she has a lot on her plate."
That same source added that fatigue "every so often" affected her speech. The source also said Panettiere suffered from anxiety and occasionally took medication for it.
Page Six exclusively obtained the 911 dispatch call, which revealed that authorities used the word "overdose" and noted that CPR was in progress. Law enforcement sources separately told Breitbart and other outlets that Narcan, a nasal medication used to reverse opioid overdoses, was found in a mattress at the scene. Those same sources said there were no signs of foul play.
The coroner's office has not confirmed or denied whether an overdose played any role. Its statement was limited: "This investigation remains active and ongoing. No further details are available for release at this time."
The dispatch audio raised immediate questions about the circumstances, but key details remain unanswered. Who placed the 911 call has not been disclosed. Whether Narcan was administered before paramedics arrived, or simply found at the location, is unclear.
A police report detailing Panettiere's final moments has since surfaced, shedding additional light on the scene and on Hickerson's reaction.
Panettiere was best known for her starring role on the television series "Nashville." But behind the camera, she fought a long battle with substance abuse that she detailed with striking candor in her memoir, "This Is Me: A Reckoning," published in May, just months before her death.
She struggled with drug and alcohol addiction beginning at age 15, the New York Post reported. She checked into rehab in 2020. At one point, a doctor delivered a blunt warning.
"A doctor told me that if I didn't stop drinking, I'd be dead within five years."
Her first treatment stint came even earlier, in 2015, when her daughter Kaya was four months old. She was diagnosed with postpartum depression. But leaving rehab created a new problem. As Fox News reported, Panettiere wrote in her memoir that she traded one dependency for another.
"I'd walked into rehab addicted to one substance, and I'd walked out, completely dependent on something else."
She was referring to anti-anxiety medication prescribed during treatment. That cycle, sobriety from one substance, dependency on another, defined years of her life. Her memoir laid bare a pattern of addiction and abuse that stretched back to childhood.
The Post also reported that Panettiere had been battling back pain and nerve damage for over a year before her death, a detail consistent with what Orellana described to Page Six about her severe mobility problems earlier this year.
In one of the memoir's more striking passages, Panettiere reflected on mortality in terms that now read as unintentionally prophetic:
"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."
Panettiere began acting as a child, and her death at 36 fits a pattern that has claimed too many young performers who grew up in the entertainment industry. Fellow former child star Alexa PenaVega has publicly grieved Panettiere alongside others lost to addiction and illness.
The autopsy's finding of no trauma narrows the range of possibilities but does not resolve the central question. Toxicology results, which typically take weeks, have not been released. Until then, the gap between what the dispatch call described, an overdose, and what the coroner's office is willing to confirm remains wide open.
Panettiere wrote openly about her failures, her relapses, and the institutions that cycled her through treatment without fixing what was broken. She did not hide from the record. Whatever the toxicology ultimately shows, the facts she put on paper herself tell the story of someone who spent two decades asking for help from a system that kept handing her a new dependency to replace the last one.
