Hayden Panettiere's estranged mother speaks out for first time since daughter's death

Panettiere was pronounced dead at her property aged 36 in South Carolina on Sunday (16 August)

General Aug 18, 2026 0 0 Add to Reading List

Hayden Panettiere's estranged mother speaks out for first time since daughter's death

Hayden Panettiere's estranged mum Lesley Vogel has made her first public comments since her daughter's tragic death.

The late actor was pronounced dead at her property aged 36 in South Carolina on Sunday (16 August).

Panettiere's ex-boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother Zach were present when she died, according to a police report obtained by NBC.

The report says Hickerson became visibly emotional after Panettiere was pronounced dead and showed police a 'bag of medication' that he said she had been taking.

Panettiere and Hickerson had been in a relationship which appeared to end in 2020.

Speaking to NBC, Vogel described Hickerson as 'a person in her life we have been trying to get rid of'.

Referring to her daughter, the 70-year-old said that Panettiere 'sadly lost her way'.

During a May 2026 appearance on Jay Shetty‘s podcast, On Purpose with Jay Shetty, Panettiere opened up about her complicated relationship, saying she viewed Vogel as her 'boss'.

Vogel managed Panettiere’s acting career from childhood, but at 19, Panettiere ended their professional relationship, saying she wanted Vogel to simply be her mother.

“Everything was business,” she recalled. “I became the confidant and the assistant and the therapist and the shoulder to cry on and everything but her child.”

She severed their professional relationship, telling her, 'I don’t want us to work together anymore. I just want you to be my mom'.

After discovering Panettiere's body at her home, the Greenville Police Department said in a statement: "[Officers] accompanied by EMS personnel, responded to a report of an unresponsive female at around 1:50 p.m. Sunday.

"Upon arrival, medical assistance was administered; however, the individual, later identified as Hayden Panettiere, was pronounced deceased at the scene."

No cause of death has yet been announced.

A timeline of Hayden Panettiere’s troubled Hollywood career

August 1989

Hayden Panettiere is born to firefighter Skip Panettiere and Lesley Vogel, who would go on to be Hayden’s manager.

1990

Panettiere appears in a commercial at 11 months old, later landing recurring roles in soap operas as a child actor.

2004/2005

Aged 15, Panettiere said someone on her team started offering her ‘happy pills’. She later tells People: “They were to make me peppy during interviews.

"I had no idea that this was not an appropriate thing, or what door that would open for me when it came to my addiction.”

2006

Aged 17, Panettiere lands one of the defining roles of her career as Claire Bennett in Heroes.

2007-2009

Panettiere later reveals several disturbing incidents that happened during this period in her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning.

Aged 18, she claims she was led onto a yacht by ‘somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector’ and placed into bed next to an ‘undressed man who was very famous’.

In 2008, she alleged a network executive kissed her on the lips at a party.

Aged 19, she said a ‘well-respected, award-winning actor’ tricked her into looking at his testicles through an unzipped fly.

In 2007, she also starts dating Heroes co-star Milo Ventimiglia - she is 18 and he is 30. They split in 2009.

2009

Panettiere starts dating Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko.

Meanwhile, her father Skip is handed two years of informal probation after pleading ‘no contest’ to spousal battery.

2013

Panettiere and Klitschko get engaged.

December 2014

Panettiere and Klitschko’s daughter Kaya is born. Panettiere endures an incredibly difficult pregnancy, haemorrhaging during her c-section and being forced to undergo a three-hour surgery.

2015

Panettiere begins suffering severe post-partum depression. She later tells Jay Shetty on his On Purpose podcast: “I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. I wasn't connecting with [Kaya] the way I should be.”

She uses alcohol to manage her mental health struggles and enters treatment when Kaya is four months old.

She later says she became dependent on medication to sleep, and then turned to drinking vodka.

2018

Klitschko presents Panettiere with custody papers asking for full custody of Kaya. After initially fighting back, she eventually accepts and Kaya goes to live with Klitschko in Ukraine.

She writes in her memoir: “Not being under the same roof with her every day has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life”

Meanwhile, her long-running role in TV show Nashville comes to an end and she doesn’t have any more TV or film roles for five years.

In the same year, she starts dating actor Brian Hickerson.

2020

Panettiere spends an eight month stint in rehab.

She experiences brutal alcohol withdrawal symptoms including insomnia and intense headaches.

Meanwhile, her now-ex Hickerson is charged with felony assault.

2021

Hickerson pleads no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse/cohabitant/girlfriend/child's parent and is sentenced to 45 days in jail and four years probation.