Hayden Panettiere and the dark side of child stardom: What happened?

Hayden Panettiere, a child star who transitioned into adulthood through candid discussions about addiction and postpartum depression, passed away at the age of 36. Panettiere rose to fame as a young actress, with her career beginning at just 11 months old when she appeared in a commercial for a toy train. By the age of seven, she joined the cast of the long-running soap opera Guiding Light, playing the character Lizzie Spaulding until 2000.

Panettiere's breakthrough role came in 2005, when she starred as a competitive teenage figure skater in Disney's Ice Princess. The following year, she landed her breakout role on NBC's Heroes, playing an indestructible cheerleader in a series about ordinary people with extraordinary abilities. Her rising profile, however, brought intense tabloid attention focused on her appearance and personal life.

Panettiere faced numerous challenges throughout her life, including domestic violence from her ex-boyfriend Brian Hickerson, which she detailed in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning. She also struggled with postpartum depression after giving birth to her daughter, Kaya, in 2014, and had to send her daughter to live with Hickerson in Ukraine while she focused on her recovery.

Panettiere's career successes included roles in movies such as The Amanda Knox Story, where she explored themes of alcoholism and postpartum depression, and the television series Nashville, in which she played a talented but troubled young country singer.

In the weeks leading up to her death, Panettiere had been managing a back injury that caused nerve damage and numbness. On August 16, emergency responders were called to a residence in Greenville, South Carolina, after a 911 call, and found Panettiere in cardiac arrest. Despite efforts by her brother Brian Hickerson to administer Narcan and perform CPR, Panettiere was pronounced dead at 2:32 p.m. An autopsy found no signs of trauma, and her cause of death remains undetermined pending toxicology results.