Tributes paid to Heroes actress Hayden Panettiere who has died aged 36
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- Skip Panettiere confirmed his daughter's death in a statement to media, calling her "an incredible light" and asking for privacy as the family processes the loss; no details surrounding her death were immediately available
- Hayden Panettiere began acting at age four on the soap opera One Life to Live and built a three-decade career spanning Heroes (2006–2010), Nashville, Remember the Titans, the Scream franchise, and Pixar's A Bug's Life
- Panettiere earned two Golden Globe nominations for Nashville and released a memoir earlier this year, "This Is Me: A Reckoning," recounting struggles with addiction and abuse as a child actor
- Panettiere publicly disclosed postpartum depression in 2015 after giving birth to daughter Kaya, and later wrote in her memoir about granting full custody of Kaya to ex-partner Wladimir Klitschko in 2018
- Selma Blair, Jojo, Rosie O'Donnell, Melissa Barrera, and SAG-AFTRA were among those issuing tributes, with Blair posting "I love you. Don't be gone. Please"
Why it matters: Panettiere's death at 36 — just months after publishing a memoir about addiction, abuse, and her painful custody loss — lands amid wider coverage (Variety's "Hollywood Failed Hayden Panettiere") that frames her struggles as a reckoning for the child-star system. For the industry, the timing sharpens an existing conversation about how it treats young performers; for fans, it collapses three decades of on-screen work into a single, unresolved ending.
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