Hayden Panettiere suffered apparent overdose according to 911 dispatch audio
Hayden Panettiere suffered an apparent overdose before her death at the age of 36.
The famed actor was pronounced dead at around 2:32pm on Sunday, August 16, in Greenville, North Carolina, after a friend made a 911 call at around 1:50pm.
PEOPLE report that they have obtained dispatch audio from the police response to the call, and claim officials were heard discussing an 'overdose' and 'cardiac arrest' around the time of Panettiere's death.
Police told PEOPLE that the official cause of Panettiere's death will not be confirmed until after an autopsy.
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LADbible has approached the Greenville Police Department for comment.
The US actor began her career on the screen before even turning 1 and went on make appearances in Heroes, Scream and Racing Stripes.
In a statement, reps said her family would remember Panettiere as an 'incredible light' who brought 'immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her'.
Sources have reported Panettiere travelled from Los Angeles to Greenville on Saturday before, as TMZ reported, emergency crews responded to a person in suspected 'cardiac arrest', with sources saying they attempted to resuscitate her using 'advanced cardiac life support.'
However, police also didn't confirm if those techniques were used when asked by PEOPLE.
A statement from the Greenville Police Department said: "[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.
"The case is under investigation by the Greenville Police Department in conjunction with the Greenville County Coroner's Office. The preliminary investigation has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances. An acquaintance of Ms. Panettiere placed the 911 call."
In a statement, Panettiere's father Skip, said: “It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden.
“She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her — and to the millions who watched her onscreen.”
Panettiere's first role was in an advert when she was just 11 months old and she made her movie debut aged nine as the voice of Princess Dot in A Bug's Life.
Perhaps her most well-known role was that of superhero cheerleader Claire Bennet, who she played across 75 episodes, in the TV hit Heroes.
She also appeared in 124 episodes of Nashville and in the video game Until Dawn, with her last role coming in the 2026 film Sleep Walker.
Panettiere released a tell-all memoir in May, in which she shared traumatic details of the sexual harassment she suffered as a child star, including being led to to the bed of a 'very famous' naked British man while on a boat, and her battles with addiction and postpartum depression.
She is survived by her 11-year-old daughter, Kaya, who she shared with former fiancé and boxer Wladimir Klitschko.
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: Celebrity, Film, US News, Hayden Panettiere
Daniel Murphy