Actor Hayden Panettiere’s cause of death has been revealed as an accidental overdose involving several drugs, including fentanyl. According to The Associated Press, Panettiere, 36, had been in rehab just weeks before her death.
The actress, known for her roles in Heroes, Nashville, was found unresponsive on Sunday, Aug. 16, in South Carolina. Her boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, and his brother, Zach, were in the apartment with her.
A combination of fentanyl, alprazolam (Xanax), the muscle relaxant methocarbamol and the antipsychotic quetiapine were found in Panettiere’s system, according to a statement from the Greenville County Coroner’s Office.
In addition to her acting work, Panettiere was a longtime advocate for whales and dolphins. In 2007, at age 18, she travelled to Taiji, Japan, to protest the annual dolphin hunts, paddling into the cove with a group of activists and surfers. The confrontation with fishermen was later featured in the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove. Panettiere also became an international spokesperson for the Whaleman Foundation and its Save the Whales Again! campaign, which advocates for the protection of whales and dolphins.
Panettiere was also a vocal supporter of shark conservation and the work of filmmaker and environmental activist Rob Stewart. She became a fan of Stewart’s 2006 documentary Sharkwater, which examined the threats facing sharks, and the two later became friends. She supported his subsequent films, Revolution and Sharkwater Extinction, and became a Sharkwater Ambassador. She also attended the Hollywood premiere of Sharkwater Extinction in 2019, where she praised Stewart’s work and its impact on shark conservation.
Shortly before her death, Panettiere filmed a PETA campaign opposing the captivity of dolphins and whales in marine parks. In the campaign, which was released after her death, she spoke about the impact of confining marine mammals to tanks.
In her memoir, This Is Me, released in May, Panettiere described lifelong trauma from her early fame, her struggles with addiction and the postpartum depression she experienced after the birth of her daughter, Kaya, with boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014.
Her memoir also detailed her long relationship with Hickerson and instances of physical abuse. In 2020, Hickerson was charged with multiple felony counts of abuse and later pleaded no contest to two counts of injuring a spouse or partner. He served a short jail sentence and was sentenced to four years of probation, along with anger management and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. After completing the terms of his sentence, Hickerson asked a judge to reduce his convictions to misdemeanors, but the request was denied.
As a child, Panettiere acted in commercials and soap operas, including as the troubled Lizzie Spaulding on Guiding Light. In her memoir, she wrote that the traumas her character endured, from being kidnapped to killing her mother’s boyfriend, led her to associate “catastrophe with adoration.”
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