Hayden Panettiere death latest: US drug agency DEA joins investigation into Heroes star’s death

After getting her start on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, Hayden Panettiere went on to act in a number of TV shows, eventually starring in hit shows Heroes and Nashville. Below is a list of TV shows she appeared on, according to her IMDb page:

• Aliens in the Family
• Unhappily Ever After
• One Life to Live
• Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke
• Touched by an Angel
• Guiding Light
• Ally McBeal
• Fillmore!
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
• Malcolm in the Middle
• Commander in Chief
• Skater Boys
• Robot Chicken
• Heroes
• American Dad!
• Heroes Reborn
• Nashville

Even Stevens star Christy Carlson Romano has called for greater protections for child actors following Hayden Panettiere’s death.

“Early fame is like CTE. Not as a diagnosis. As a way of thinking about repeated impact,” Romano wrote in an essay for Elle, comparing the effects of childhood fame to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head injuries.

“Is it any wonder so many of us struggle with addiction? The industry gives us the wound and then acts surprised when we reach for something to treat it,” she wrote.

Romano, who also began working as a child actor, said young performers face “stress, scrutiny, rejection, adult pressure, and the collapse of privacy” before they are equipped to deal with them. “We need to stop calling the truth bitterness,” she wrote.

A former neighbour of Hayden Panettiere has described repeated disturbances involving her on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson, saying she called 911 “at least half a dozen times”.

Mia Terrazzas told Inside Edition that she noticed signs of domestic violence and claimed Panettiere appeared frightened during one incident. “I saw her leaving on a gurney. Brian was right next to her, and I asked her if she was okay” she said.

Terrazzas claimed it “looked to me that she had suffered some type of trauma that looked to be battering”.

She also alleged that homeowners’ association notices were posted warning residents to call 911 if Hickerson was seen at the property, although she said they were removed about a week later.

Panettiere detailed years of physical abuse by Hickerson in her memoir, writing that he had tried to smash her head into a wall and “bust up her face so badly I don’t leave the house for weeks”.

Hickerson pleaded no contest in April 2021 to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend and was sentenced to 45 days in county jail, four years’ probation, 52 domestic-violence classes and a five-year protective order. He ultimately served 13 days in jail.

Brian Hickerson, Panettiere’s on-off boyfriend, was denied a request to expunge and downgrade his previous felony charges to misdemeanors days before the Heroes star’s death.

The charges stemmed from several alleged incidents involving Panettiere between May 2019 and January 2020.

Following his July 2020 arrest, Hickerson pleaded no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend. He was hit with an eight-count criminal indictment in April 2021.

Hickerson was sentenced to 45 days in jail in 2021, along with four years of probation, 52 mandatory domestic violence classes, and a five-year restraining order.

Page Six reported that Hickerson’s request was denied during an August 13 court hearing, despite arguing that the terms of his probation had been met. Hickerson previously made the same request in July 2025, which was also denied.

Hickerson was with Panettiere at the time of her death.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration has joined the investigation into Hayden Panettiere’s death, according to a person familiar with the case who spoke to the New York Times.

Panettiere, 36, was found in cardiac arrest at an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, on Sunday and could not be revived.

A person with knowledge of the investigation told the Times that an apparent drug overdose led to the cardiac arrest, although her official cause of death has not been determined.

The DEA’s involvement comes after police found Panettiere’s former boyfriend Brian Hickerson at the apartment and he showed officers a bag containing medication she had been taking. The details of those medications were redacted from the police report.

Police have said there were no signs of foul play, while toxicology results are still pending.

In her 2026 memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, Panettiere recalled being thrown from a zebra while filming the 2005 movie, Racing Stripes.

Just 14 years old at the time, Panettiere suffered damage to two vertebrae in her neck, a concussion and severe whiplash.

“I kept my mouth shut and endured the pain in my back and neck,” she wrote in her memoir.

“Over 20 years later, these injuries still bother me.”

Police have been spotted at a Hickerson family residence about five miles from where Panettiere died Sunday.

Her on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother Zach were both with her when she died.

Now, Page Six reported Wednesday that cops were seen outside a home belonging to the Hickerson brothers’ grandmother.

A pair of officers were seen around 8:20 a.m. ET knocking on front and side doors of the residence. They returned about 90 minutes later to “conduct a welfare check,” the outlet reported.

However, it was not clear who the intended target of the welfare check was.

The Independent has contacted the Greenville Police Department for more information.

Filmmaker Griff Furst worked with Panettiere on A Breed Apart, which was released in theaters in May 2025.

In an Instagram video shared August 17, Furst recalled Panettiere’s on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson being on set.

“I had met Hayden about 10 years before that and I knew that she was insanely talented, so when she signed on to do this picture that we were shooting, I was psyched. I really wanted to work with her. So I’m on set, and I get word from the movie’s security team who picked her up from the airport that something was off,” Furst said in the video.

“I didn’t think much about it, and so I left set and I walked over to greet her and her boyfriend Brian. He opened the door. Hayden was incredibly sweet and gracious and excited to work, but she was not okay,” he continued.

“I’m not going to get into the details of why that was, but having worked on over 100 movies and seeing just about everything, it was pretty clear that she wasn’t okay and the energy in her room was pretty dark.”