Actress Hayden Panettiere was just 36 years old when she was found deceased from an apparent overdose on Sunday. The tell-tale signs of her premature demise were on display in her harrowing memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, which hit shelves just three months ago.
Panettiere had just completed a press tour to promote the book, in which she describes her battles with addiction, her relationship with her now 11-year-old daughter, and alleges predatory behavior from some of Hollywood’s elite.
The actress, who was best known for her roles in Scream, Heroes, and Nashville, as well as her childhood roles in Remember the Titans and soap operas Guiding Light and One Life to Live, wrote in her book that she believes her early onset success may have attracted “trauma” into her life.
For example, while playing 8-year-old Lizzie Spaulding on Guiding Light, Panettiere said her mother advised her to imagine “the most horrific thing that could happen to an 8-year-old,” in order to “trigger tears.” The actress reflected in the book, decades later, “I’ve often wondered whether—unintentionally—I’ve brought on my traumas because I’m wired to think they’re good for me,” as her heartbreaking performances earned her acclaim.
Panettiere’s estranged mother said in a statement in response that her daughter’s anecdotes were “partially to sell books.”
Still, many elements of the late star’s story rang true to fans—like when she details her terrifying account of being “instructed by a “friend” to perform sexual acts on an older actor when she was 18, and trapped on a boat. “She physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous,” Panettiere recalled while discussing the incident on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast. The man reacted to her presence “like this was just an average day for him,” she wrote.
Elsewhere in the book, she recalls another incident in which an “Oscar-winning actor and director” approached her and exposed himself when she was 19. “This well-respected, award-winning actor’s testicles were hanging out from his unzipped fly,” she wrote.
The star reflected, “Even though I felt I could make healthy decisions, safe decisions [at that age], I wasn’t capable of being fully aware of what was going on around me.”
She chose not to name the men in question, however, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “They’re people I could run into again,” she said. “I didn’t want to put myself in that position. Things happened a long time ago, but it was to protect me and my company from being sued by some very pissed-off famous people.”
Before Hollywood made its scars on the star, she also suffered through bullying in school—writing in her memoir that classmates would pass her mean-spirited notes, which she would keep under her bed to revisit before she transitioned to homeschooling to pursue acting.
Emotional scars turned out to only be part of her lifelong ordeal, as at the age of 14, she was injured when she was thrown off a zebra while filming 2005’s Racing Stripes. She wrote in her book that she suffered damage to two vertebrae in her neck, a concussion, and severe whiplash. “Over 20 years later, these injuries still bother me,” she wrote.
By 16, a member of her team had offered her a “happy pill” before walking a red carpet. The star said she began to request them regularly until they became a “gateway drug” to other addictions, including alcohol abuse and opioids. The actress wrote in her book that she drank so much that she developed yellowed eyes due to jaundice, and that a “doctor told me that if I didn’t stop drinking, I’d be dead within five years.”
Her opioid use also increased when her “old neck injury flared up.” No specific drug has been named as having played a role in the star’s death.
According to People, Panettiere was found unresponsive by police and EMS at a residence in Greenville, South Carolina on Sunday afternoon. TMZ reported that first responders administered “advanced cardiac life support” to no avail. Dispatch audio refers to an “overdose” and “cardiac arrest,” People also reported.
The star was traveling with her on-again-off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson, 36, just before her death. In her memoir, she alleges several instances of physical abuse by Hickerson in a chapter where she describes him slamming her head into a wall, threatening her to run before he throws a phone at her, and being beaten so badly in her face that she had to hide indoors. Hickerson admitted the violence in an interview with TMZ, telling the outlet, “I did it.”
Panettiere also wrote that she “forgave” him after going through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
“He also had a big heart full of pain, just like mine, and I had love for him—despite what he’d done to me,” she wrote. “Those were feelings I knew I’d probably spend my whole life working through.”
Authorities have said there are no signs of foul play in her death. TMZ reported that the star had been suffering from back pain after flying into South Carolina.
She shared her 11-year-old daughter, Kaya, with ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko, a Ukrainian former professional heavyweight boxing champion, to whom she turned over custody following her bouts with addiction and severe postpartum depression.
“Kaya’s life didn’t have to be that way,” she said, reflecting on the decision and her own childhood in her memoir. “Kaya needed to feel at rest, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally,” so “I signed the papers, and Wlad got our child.”
The actress told NPR in May, “I travel as much as I can. I spend as much time as I can with her. I have a great relationship with—co-parenting relationship with Wlad” and “I have a relationship with my daughter.”
“If I can’t be there with her physically, then I talk to her all the time on FaceTime,” she added. “And she’s getting to that age where she’s reaching out more and more to mommy, which is beautiful. But I feel like I’ve gotten to—we developed a relationship that’s unique and different than most parents get to have with their children. Hopefully, you know, a growing friendship, too.”
