Hayden Panettiere’s mother, Lesley Vogel, has broken her silence following the death of her daughter.
In comments shared with NBC News, Lesley criticized her daughter’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Brian Hickerson. “This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death, and that was Brian Hickerson,” said Vogel. “I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments, and I think young people who grow up in the entertainment industry—it is a struggle and it's a very challenging industry, and it's not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path.”
As reported by NBC News on Tuesday (Aug. 18), the Greenville Police Department confirmed that Brian and his brother, Zach, were at the scene when Hayden was found dead in an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina. She was 36. The responding officer noted that he first spoke with Zach, who was “very emotional” at the scene. The report from the officers said that Brian wasn’t visibly emotional until she was declared dead.
A cause of death has not been determined, but Narcan, a drug used to help treat overdoses, was reportedly found at the scene.
Brian first started dating Panettiere in 2018, and they were romantically linked for years. However, their time together made headlines multiple times, including in 2021 when he pleaded no contest to two charges in connection with multiple domestic violence incidents involving her. Just days before she was found dead, Brian had his request to have his felony domestic violence charges reduced to misdemeanors denied by a judge.
In 2020, he was accused of punching Panettiere in the face.
In an interview with TMZ earlier this year, Brian said Panettiere’s mother, who also previously served as her manager, was “by far one of the worst people I’ve ever met in my life.”
