Published: 14:26 BST, 18 August 2026 | Updated: 17:15 BST, 18 August 2026
Hayden Panettiere's on-off boyfriend and convicted felon Brian Hickerson spoke candidly about abusing her in a resurfaced chat, taken three months before her shock death at 36.
Panettiere, who would have turned 37 on August 21, was found 'unresponsive' by officers and paramedics in an apartment block in Greenville, South Carolina, on Sunday, and she was later pronounced dead at the scene following a suspected overdose.
Police and the local coroner's office are probing the death, but said the 'preliminary investigation has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances'.
The star and Hickerson, who was previously jailed for abusing her, were said to have flown from Los Angeles to South Carolina, where he is from, one day before she died – and on Tuesday a police report revealed Hickerson and his brother were with the actress when she died.
She is survived by one daughter, Kaya, 11, who she welcomed during her longest romantic relationship, with boxer Wladimir Klitschko, 50.
Hickerson was sentenced to 45 days in county jail – and served 13 days the following month – after pleading no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend back in April 2021.
Hayden Panettiere's on-off boyfriend and convicted felon Brian Hickerson spoke candidly about abusing her in a resurfaced chat, taken three months before her shock death at 36.; The two seen in 2018
In a May interview with TMZ , Hickerson grinned as he spoke about the domestic violence incidents that took place during their relationship – and how he felt seeing Panettiere retell the abuse in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, saying 'I did it' about the abuse
Panettiere's tragic death at 36 over the weekend was announced on Sunday night. She is pictured here at a gala in Hollywood in 2022
In a May interview with TMZ, Hickerson spoke about the domestic violence incidents that took place during their relationship – and how he felt seeing Panettiere retell the abuse in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning.
He also revealed that there was one particular incident he wanted her to leave out of the book but she ended up keeping it in.
'There's a story where I was drunk, right? Hayden was standing across the room and I had a phone in my hand and I said, "Hayden I'll give you 10 seconds to run as fast as you can before I throw it at you,"' he recalled.
In July of 2020, he was arrested again in connection with eight charges of domestic violence. He entered a no-contest plea to a pair of felony counts of injuring a partner in 2021, and the rest of the charges were dropped
'Who wants to read something about themselves like that, right?' he asked, before adding with a big smile, 'I did it. I did it.'
