Hayden Panettiere, who is best known for playing the superpowered cheerleader on NBC’s Heroes, has died at the age of 36. Her rep confirmed the news to Deadline.
“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,” her rep said in a statement to ABC.
The actress died in South Carolina, according to a source. Details are scant about her passing, but there is an ongoing investigation into the matter.
Panettiere had been open about her struggles with depression and addiction. The actress told people she was given “happy pills” at the age of 15. She got Heroes at 16, and graduated to drinking and occasionally taking opioids. “My saving grace is that I couldn’t be messy while on set and working,” she said. “But things kept getting out of control [off set]. And as I got older, the drugs and alcohol became something I almost couldn’t live without.”
The birth of her daughter Kaya in 2014 brought postpartum depression, which the actress was open about. She began drinking again and and her relationship with Kaya’s father, former world heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, ended. “He didn’t want to be around me,” she said. “I didn’t want to be around me. But with the opiates and alcohol I was doing anything to make me feel happy for a moment. Then I’d feel worse than I did before. I was in a cycle of self-destruction.”
In 2018, still battling addiction, Panettiere sent Kaya to Ukraine to live with her father full time. “It was the hardest thing I ever had to do,” she says. “But I wanted to be a good mom to her — and sometimes that means letting them go.”
Panettiere was a child star who appeared in commercials and had a four-year run as Sarah Roberts on One Life to Live (1994 to 1997), and then on The Guiding Light as Lizzie Spaulding. She made her big screen debut at the age of 9 in A Bug’s Life. The same year she also appeared in The Object of My Affection. In 2000, she played the daughter of a coach in the Denzel Washington starrer Remember the Titans. In 2004, Panettiere landed her first starring roles a the daughter of actor Bill Pullman’s character in Tiger Cruise on The Disney Channel.
Then, in 2006, came Heroes. Panettiere played high school cheerleader Claire Bennet in the NBC drama about superheroes juggling normal life and saving the world. The show was originally supposed to involve new characters each season, but the popularity of the show and audience investment in the character played by Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia was such that the original actors remained through all four seasons of its run.
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She soon played a cheerleader again, this time on the big screen in Chris Columbus’ 2009 film I Love You Beth Cooper. While the film underperformed for Fox, it soon became a mainstay on basic-cable movie stations.
Panettiere appeared as Kirby Reed in three Scream films: Scream 4 (2011), cameo in its sequel Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2023). Reed was the best friend of Jill Roberts, franchise protagonist Sidney Prescott’s younger cousin. Reed’s status as the so-called “final girl” alive at the end of Scream 4 raised her profile to more of a main character, especially with fans.
She moved back to TV in 2012 for Nashville. Panettiere played rising country music star Juliette Barnes opposite Connie Britton as a Nashville legend named Rayna Jaymes. Much of the show’s drama — and a good portion of ABC’s marketingl campaign — centered on the rivalry between their two characters. Nashville ran for six seasons, first on ABC and then CMT.
