A 911 call reporting a cardiac arrest brought first responders to the Greenville apartment where actor Hayden Panettiere was later pronounced dead, and an autopsy has since found no signs of trauma, according to the Greenville County Coroner's Office.
The coroner's office said the call came in at around 1:51 p.m. Sunday regarding a reported cardiac arrest at 701 Easley Bridge Road. First responders and EMS personnel arrived and found a woman in cardiac arrest, and EMS initiated advanced cardiac life support measures, but resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful. The 36-year-old former "Heroes" and "Nashville" star was pronounced dead at 2:32 p.m., the coroner's office said in a news release shared with NTD News.
The coroner's office identified the decedent as Hayden Leslie Panettiere, 36, of California, and said she had been temporarily staying at the apartment where she was found unresponsive. The Greenville County Coroner's Office responded to the scene and opened a parallel investigation with the Greenville City Police Department.
An autopsy completed Monday found no signs of trauma that would have contributed to her death, though the cause and manner of death remain pending further investigation. Officers had earlier reported observing no indications of foul play at the scene.
Panettiere's father, Skip Panettiere, confirmed her death in a statement to ABC, calling her "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 would have turned 37 on Friday.
The coroner's office and Greenville Police Department said the investigation remains active and ongoing, and no further details are available for release at this time.
Panettiere's death closes out a screen career that began in infancy, when she appeared in a toy commercial at 11 months old. She landed her first acting role at age 4 on the soap opera "One Life to Live" and later played a troubled teen on "Guiding Light."
Her breakthrough came in 2006 as indestructible cheerleader Claire Bennet on NBC's sci-fi drama "Heroes," a role that drew more than 14 million viewers in its first season and earned her three Teen Choice Awards. She later starred as country singer Juliette Barnes on "Nashville," a role that produced two Golden Globe nominations and 11 songs that charted on Billboard's Hot Country Songs list.
Public Battles With Addiction and Loss
Panettiere had written openly about years of struggle with alcohol addiction, depression, and postpartum depression following the 2014 birth of her daughter, Kaya, with former boxer Wladimir Klitschko, according to her memoir, "This Is Me," published in May. She entered rehab in 2015 while filming "Nashville" and told Women's Health magazine in 2023, "I was the one who put myself in the first treatment center. I was drowning."In a podcast interview with Jay Shetty earlier this year, she pushed back on the idea that she had abandoned her now 11-year-old daughter, who has lived with Klitschko in Ukraine since age 2, saying she had instead been fighting through a "horrible cycle for years of battling depression and anxiety and alcoholism and substance abuse.”
Her younger brother, actor Jansen Panettiere, died of a heart condition in 2023 at age 28.