Report Details Hayden Panettiere's Health Issues and Security Measures During Book Tour
The New York Times reported that actress Hayden Panettiere experienced severe leg pain and that private security was instructed to keep her ex-boyfriend away from a May book-signing event, weeks before her death.
The New York Times reported that actress Hayden Panettiere suffered from a persistent “pins and needles” sensation in her legs, which limited her mobility, according to her mother Lesley Vogel. Vogel said she accompanied Panettiere to Los Angeles a year ago and sought medical and acupuncture treatment for the condition.
During a May 2024 book tour in Manhattan, Panettiere’s team hired private security and gave explicit instructions to prevent her former partner, Brian Hickerson, from attending the Barnes & Noble signing. Hickerson was later present when Panettiere was found dead on Aug. 16 in an apartment in Greenville, S.C. Police said no foul play was suspected and an initial autopsy found no signs of trauma.
Panettiere’s memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, released in May, describes a history of violence by Hickerson that led to three arrests and a brief jail term. On Saturday, actress Melissa Gilbert wrote in a Substack essay that the deaths of several former child actors, including Panettiere, highlight the need for better protections for child performers.