Hayden Panettiere, the child star who rose to international stardom through her roles in Heroes and Nashville, has died at 36.
Panettiere died Sunday in South Carolina. Her father, Skip Panettiere, announced the death in a statement, asking for privacy “as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss.” Police in Greenville said officers and emergency medical services responded to a report of an unresponsive female Sunday afternoon and pronounced her dead at the scene, according to ABC News.
Authorities said the preliminary investigation has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances, and the cause of death has not been released.
Panettiere began acting as a child and landed roles in Disney’s Remember the Titans and A Bug’s Life. She also starred in Bring It On Again: All or Nothing and the Scream franchise before breaking out as cheerleader Claire Bennet in NBC’s Heroes. She went on to star as country singer Juliette Barnes in ABC’s Nashville, a role that further cemented her as one of Hollywood’s most recognizable young stars.
In recent years, Panettiere has openly spoken about the personal struggles that followed the birth of her daughter, Kaya, in 2014 with then-fiance Wladimir Klitschko. She revealed she battled postpartum depression and addiction, struggles she said led to her decision to give up custody of her daughter in 2018.
She continued discussing her recovery publicly in the years that followed, including in a memoir released this year, This Is Me: A Reckoning, in which she reflected on her childhood fame, motherhood, and mental health.
Panettiere also carried the grief of losing her younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, who died in 2023 at age 28 from cardiomegaly. She told People two years after his death that she would “never be able to get over” the loss.
Panettiere would have turned 37 on Friday.