The autopsy for actress Hayden Panettiere has revealed more information about her shocking death at the age of 36.
The Greenville County Coroner’s Office delivered an initial statement on the “Nashville” actress’s post-mortem, saying that her body had not shown visible “signs of trauma” at the time of her death.
“The decedent has been identified as Hayden [Lesley] Panettiere, 36, of California. Panettiere was found unresponsive inside the residence, where she had been temporarily staying. An autopsy was completed today. At autopsy, no signs of trauma were discovered that would have contributed to the death,” the statement read.
“This investigation remains active and ongoing. No further details are available for release at this time,” the coroner’s statement concluded, but the office stipulated that additional testing was ongoing and that additional information would be released as it was made available.
First responders were dispatched to an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, where Panettierre was reportedly staying with on-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson, on Sunday. Their arrival came following a 911 call indicating that there was an unresponsive woman who may have suffered a cardiac arrest. Two ambulances arrived on the scene, according to entertainment site TMZ, and both unloaded stretchers, but it is unclear why they thought a second stretcher might be needed. Hickerson was reportedly at the apartment at the time, but both ambulances ultimately left the scene without patients onboard.
Additional reports from TMZ suggested that first responders used both Narcan and epinephrine — used to treat opioid overdoses and cardiac arrest, respectively — but did not confirm whether they were used exclusively to treat Panettierre or someone else who may have been in the apartment.
Earlier reports included information from the 911 call from the apartment, and indicated that Panettierre was being treated for a suspected overdose.
The “Heroes” actress has had a long and well-documented history of struggling with addiction, dating back to her teenage years when she said adults had offered her “happy pills” ahead of red carpet appearances: “They were to make me peppy during interviews.”
As her battle escalated, she eventually compromised her liver function to the point that she developed jaundice.
“I was being told how to be and how to live by so many people in my life. I wanted certain decisions to be my own, and nobody could stop me. What I put in my body was like an act of defiance,” she said — and she added that her addiction had gotten much worse while she battled postpartum depression following the birth of the daughter she shares with ex Wladimir Klitschko.
“I never heard any stories about it at all,” she said of postpartum depression in 2023. “I just thought there was something seriously wrong with me, so I thought, ‘[Alcohol] will fix this. Duh!’ And it didn’t. It does for a moment, but then it made everything worse.”
By the time she sought treatment, her eyes were yellow from the jaundice and her hair had thinned and begun to fall out.
“Doctors told me my liver was going to give out,” Panettierre admitted during a 2022 interview — and in her recently released memoir, she added, “A doctor told me that if I didn’t stop drinking, I’d be dead within five years.”
Panettierre spent months in rehab, and went into great detail in her memoir describing her experiences going through withdrawal: “Once during withdrawal, I heard voices that were so terrifying I got on all fours and crawled to my bathroom, where I lay on the cool, clean tiles and waited for the panic to pass. I couldn’t sleep, and my head pounded like it was pressing against my skull.”
Panettierre was pronounced dead at 2:32 p.m. on Sunday, just five days before what would have been her 37th birthday.
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