Hayden Panettiere allegedly took an oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl on the day she died, as investigators examine the circumstances surrounding the actress’s death in South Carolina.
Panettiere, 36, is alleged to have bought several prescription drugs on the black market from a longtime dealer in Los Angeles before travelling to Greenville with her on-off boyfriend, Brian Hickerson.
Sources cited in reports said she took the drugs with her on the flight and that authorities believe the pill taken on the morning of her death may have been contaminated with fentanyl. No one has been arrested in connection with her death.
Hickerson reportedly found Panettiere unresponsive and administered Narcan, a medicine used to reverse an opioid overdose. First responders later found the nasal spray inside the apartment where she was pronounced dead.
Police dispatch audio reportedly described the incident first as a cardiac arrest before a dispatcher referred to a suspected overdose. The Greenville County Sheriff’s Office has said that an autopsy found no signs of trauma.
Investigation into alleged fentanyl-laced pill
Investigators are attempting to trace the pill to the person who allegedly sold it to Panettiere. Hickerson is also reported to have met Drug Enforcement Administration investigators last week as the probe continued.
According to a police report, Hickerson handed authorities a bag of medication that Panettiere had been taking after she was declared dead. He was at the scene with his brother, Zachary, when she was pronounced dead.
Zachary was arrested at the weekend for disorderly conduct following a bar brawl in South Carolina. He and Hickerson had reportedly been heckled about Panettiere’s death, and Zachary was released on bond on Sunday.
Panettiere had spoken publicly about her struggles with alcohol and opiates. She spent eight months in rehabilitation in 2020 after developing jaundice and said in her memoir that a doctor had warned her: “If I didn’t stop drinking, I’d be dead within five years.”
She also wrote that her addiction began when she was 15, when she took “happy pills” to appear more “peppy” during interviews. Her substance use later worsened while she was experiencing postnatal depression after the birth of her daughter, Kaya, in 2014.
The former child star was known for playing Claire Bennet in Heroes and Juliette Barnes in Nashville. She also appeared as Kirby Reed in the Scream franchise and provided voices for the video games Until Dawn and Kingdom Hearts.
Panettiere’s younger brother, Jansen, died in February 2023 at the age of 28 from what was described as an enlarged heart. She said afterwards that she had “lost half of her soul” and that the grief had left her in a “really bad” and “destructive” place.
Her memoir, This is Me: A Reckoning, became a New York Times bestseller only months before her death.
