American actress Hayden Panettiere – known for her roles in the TV series Heroes and Nashville and in the Scream films – has died at the age of 36. The actress leaves behind a daughter, Kaya Evdokia Klitschko, born in 2014 from her relationship with Volodymyr Klyčko, a former boxing champion.
The news was confirmed by his agent ABC News, but the cause of death was not disclosed. “It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of our beloved Hayden. Her light was extraordinary, a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her and the millions who followed her on screen,” her father, Skip Panettiere, said in a statement.
Born in Palisades on August 21, 1989 – to a soap opera actress and a firefighter – she had a younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, also an actor, who died in 2023 at age 28 of heart disease.
Who was Hayden Panettiere
He began his career at 11 months old, appearing in a commercial for a toy train. At four years old she played Sarah Roberts in the ABC soap ‘One Life to Live’, a role she held from 1994 to 1997. From 1997 to 2001 she played Lizzie Spaulding in ‘Sentieri’, a character struggling with a battle against leukemia. In 1998 he left soaps and made his film debut with a small role in ‘The Object of My Desire’. Subsequently she appears in ‘The Taste of Victory’, ‘The Words I Didn’t Tell You’, ‘When You Least Expect It’, ‘Ice Princess – A Dream on Ice’ and in series such as ‘Ally McBeal’ (where she plays the protagonist’s daughter), ‘Malcolm’ and ‘Law & Order – Special Victims Unit’. International fame came in 2006 with the role of Claire Bennet, the cheerleader with the power of cell regeneration, in the series ‘Heroes’.
In 2011 she accepted the role of the controversial protagonist in the TV film ‘Amanda Knox’. Additionally, she replaces Anne Hathaway in ‘Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil’ and co-stars in ‘Scream 4’ and ‘Scream VI’, where he plays Kirby Reed. From 2012 to 2018 he starred in ‘Nashville’, a series focused on the rivalry between two country music stars. Her autobiography ‘This Is Me. A Reckoning’ was recently released, in which she retraces the traumatic experiences she lived in Hollywood and the pressure of the tabloids in the early 2000s, recounting without filters episodes of postpartum depression, addiction and domestic violence.