Hayden Panettiere had heartwarming moment with daughter planned before tragic death
Hayden Panettiere had been planning a trip to Europe to visit her daughter in the months leading up to her death, according to a close friend.
Speaking about his last interaction with the Nashville actor after the shock news of her death broke, hairstylist Erick Orellana told Page Six that Panettiere had been planning to see daughter Kaya Klitschko.
"I last saw her a few months ago," Orellana, who is said to have been a friend of Panettiere's, said.
"She was talking about how she wanted to take a vacation, and that she wanted to go and see her daughter. Her daughter was always her absolute priority. She loved her so much."
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Panettiere welcomed Kaya with her then-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko in 2014, later agreeing to sign custody over to the Ukrainian boxer due to struggles with postpartum depression and alcohol addiction.
Despite the physical distance from her daughter - the Klitschkos are currently believed to reside in Ukraine - the 36-year-old had kept in regular contact with the youngster, describing their bond as 'really strong'.
Panettiere wrote candidly about her relationship with Kaya in her recent memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, revealing that the decision to sign over custody to Klitschko was incredibly difficult for her.
"Not being under the same roof with her every day has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life," she wrote.
"I grieve that I’m not the mother I thought I’d be and definitely not the mother I want to be (trust me, no one should ever have to raise a child on FaceTime), and although I miss Kaya so much, my heart aches, I know how blessed I am to be her mom."
Panettiere had also suffered from a traumatic birth, revealing that she'd experienced extensive hemorrhaging after delivering Kaya.
It would take an additional surgery and a further seven blood transfusions to keep Panettiere alive.
"I closed my eyes and just prayed for my daughter to be okay," Panettiere later told Mome of the moment. "I truly was ready to go if it was my time. Kaya being safe and healthy was all that mattered."
The actor would later struggle to bond with the infant, adding: "I felt nothing. And now I had to figure out how to bond with her. It seemed like an impossible task."
"Everything she did revolved around her."
Despite a difficult birth and making the decision to relinquish custody, Orellana also revealed that Panettiere would often speak highly of her Kaya, telling the outlet that she often shared photos and stories about her daughter with friends.
"Her daughter was the absolute light of her life," he said. "She lit up when she spoke about her. Everything she did revolved around her.
"I can’t imagine that this is anything but accidental because she just loved her daughter and would never have left her."
A cause of death has not been revealed, however coroner Mike Ellis confirmed there were 'no signs of trauma' discovered on her body. The update follows a statement from Greenville Police Department, which said a preliminary investigation had not 'indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances' in relation to her death.
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.
2023
Panettiere returns to acting, reprising her role as Kirby Reed in Scream VI.
In the same year, her brother Jansen dies aged 28 from an enlarged heart.
May 2026
Panettiere releases her memoir in which she makes disturbing allegations against film stars and industry execs from when she was a teenager.
She also opens up on her experience of postpartum depression and comes out as bisexual.
August 2026
Panettiere tragically dies. Police say: “The preliminary investigation has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances.”
Topics: Hayden Panettiere
Brenna Cooper