Lesley Vogel, the mother of actress , has spoken about her daughter’s death at 36, saying she wants her to be remembered for the person she was beyond her struggles and public life.
“I want Hayden to be remembered for the talented, you know, beautiful, outgoing, intelligent woman she really was,” Vogel told .
Panettiere, known for , Nashville and Ice Princess, died on 16 August after she was found unresponsive and in cardiac arrest at a residence in Greenville, South Carolina. First responders attempted to resuscitate her, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.
‘I still am not grasping this is real’
Vogel recalled her reaction to the news, saying, “I was numb. I was just numb.”
“I still am not grasping this is real. It just, it doesn’t feel real,” she said. “My mind tells me it’s not at times. You know, it’s going to be a process.”
She also pushed back against people who might judge how she is mourning her daughter, referring to critics as “haters” and saying they “don’t have a right to tell me how to mourn the loss of my second child, that’s my domain.”
Vogel and Hayden’s father, Skip Panettiere, divorced when Hayden was young. The family also lost Hayden’s brother, Jansen Panettiere, in 2023. The family said at the time that Jansen died from an enlarged heart.
Mother-daughter relationship had become estranged
Vogel’s comments come months after Panettiere discussed their relationship in a May ABC News interview, describing efforts to maintain it as “tough.”
“Over the years, I’ve tried to leave that door open, hoping that the relationship would evolve into a healthy mother-daughter relationship, and it’s obvious that that’s just not going to be the case,” Panettiere had said.
Vogel later said she had chosen to go “the no-contact route” after taking “the advice of professionals.”
Speaking about Panettiere’s childhood, Vogel recalled that she landed the role of Claire Bennet on Heroes at 16. Vogel said her daughter had lived “a very happy life”, but added, “but I would say at about 17, I started seeing her going downhill.”
“As she got older, then it wasn’t my voice anymore. I wasn’t in charge of her choices,” Vogel said. “I tried to give her the best advice I could, but again, you know, any young person, teen, come on, they want to be liberated. And I get that. I did get that!”
Investigation into Hayden Panettiere’s death continues
Panettiere had previously spoken about postpartum depression, addiction, recovery and domestic abuse in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, released in May.
Meanwhile, the Greenville City Police Department is investigating her death, with the Drug Enforcement Administration assisting, according to sources familiar with the matter.
A police report obtained by ABC News said Panettiere was with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother, Zach Hickerson, at the time of her death. The report said it was unknown whether she had been using drugs or alcohol.
The coroner’s office has said Panettiere’s official cause and manner of death “remain pending further investigation and the completion of additional studies.”
Hickerson pleaded no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend in April 2021.
Vogel said she had previously stayed with Panettiere while her daughter wanted to leave her relationship with Hickerson. “She knew that Brian was toxic,” Vogel said. “She knew she had to get him out of her life.”
She eventually issued her daughter an ultimatum, saying she could not remain in her life if Hickerson was also part of it. Vogel said she never imagined their estrangement would precede her daughter’s death.
“I’ll be honest. It just, I don’t know why, I just didn’t,” she said. “Maybe I didn’t want to.”
Vogel said she wants people to understand that, despite Panettiere’s successful career, she believed her daughter was suffering.
“People don’t understand that you can have on the exterior all of this. But that doesn’t mean that what’s going on in here matches.”
