Hayden Panettiere entered rehab weeks before her death as harrowing new details about her final days revealed
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Tragic new details about Hayden Panettiere’s final weeks, including a secret stay in rehab before she died at age 36, have been revealed in a new report from the Greenville County Coroner’s Office.
The report said the Nashville actress suffered a previous overdose and that either Brian or Zach Hickerson (the name was redacted) claimed Panettiere had “a long history of drug, alcohol and nitrous oxide abuse” and that he “has had to administer Narcan to the decedent before”.
Tragic new details about the weeks leading up to Hayden Panettiere’s death at age 36 have been revealed in a new report. Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Narcan is used as an emergency medication to reverse opioid overdoses.
The same brother insisted he was “unaware of the decedent using any illegal substances yesterday or today but stated that she was very good at hiding them”.
One of the Hickerson brothers also shared that Panettiere had recently been in rehab too.
He said she “was in a drug rehab facility in Malibu, California, up until a few weeks ago”.
The rehab details were confirmed by her father Skip Panettiere, who said his daughter “had recently been released [from] rehab” in “Malibu”. He said she spent “two or three weeks” at the treatment facility, according to the report.
Skip said his daughter had “struggled with addiction since her early 20s and [had] been in multiple rehab facilities since that time”.
He also noted that Panettiere had “suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter,” Kaya, 11, and said her “addiction issues … escalated since then”.
Skip, who also lost his son Jansen Panettiere in February 2023, slammed his daughter’s relationship with Brian in the report.
The pair had an on-again off-again relationship for years, which Skip claimed had been “nothing but troubled”.
Panettiere’s father Skip slammed her on-again off-again relationship with Brian Hickerson, who she was with on the day she died. Getty
The coroner’s report also included harrowing new details about the day the Heroes star died.
A “small clear plastic bag of a white powdery substance” was found inside a sunglass case that belonged to Panettiere, along with “a medication bottle labelled as Adderall to the decedent” that “contained a small clear plastic bag with blue-coloured tablets that appeared to possibly be pressed pills and a cut straw”.
According to the report, the pills and straws later tested positive for fentanyl.
Panettiere’s official cause of death was listed by the coroner as an “accident” caused by “the toxic effects of fentanyl, 4-ANPP, alprazolam, methocarbamol and quetiapine”.
She had travelled to Greenville from Los Angeles the day before she died with Brian and was with him and his brother on the day she died.
Harrowing new details about the day she died were released in the new report, which details when the brothers found her unresponsive. Getty
According to the report, Brian claimed he woke up on the Sunday morning and saw Panettiere putting on make-up.
He said they “ate cereal together” before Brian allegedly “fell back asleep” in the bedroom. He said he woke back up later that afternoon after hearing his brother knock on the front door. The trio had plans to go out to lunch, per the report.
One of the brothers – name redacted – went to wake up Panettiere, who was face down and unresponsive. She was also “purple in colour”.
The brother claimed he administered Narcan “without success” and then the brothers called 911 and started CPR until emergency services arrived.
Paramedics worked on Panettiere for 30 minutes to try to revive her, but she was pronounced dead just after 2:30pm on August 16.
The actress was farewelled at an emotional celebration of life service on September 19, during an intimate service in Malibu.
The ceremony was attended by several high-profile guests including Panettiere’s former Nashville costar Connie Britton, Evan Ross and Ruby Rose.
The National Alcohol and Other Drug hotline (1800 250 015) provides free and confidential advice about alcohol and other drugs, including available treatment options, and automatically directs the caller to the Alcohol and Drug Information Service in their state/territory.
