Hayden Panettiere's body was 'found by boyfriend Brian Hickerson's brother'

The circumstances around Hayden Panettiere’s death at aged 36 are still unclear but new reports say she was found by her boyfriend’s brother.

It’s believed that her on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson was at the apartment where Panettiere took her last breaths.

A source has now claimed that he was asleep in the bedroom at the time, while his brother, Zach, was the one to discover the actress.

TMZ’s insiders claimed that Zach had entered the Airbnb and ‘found Hayden in a chair in the living room’. The brothers are said to have then called 911.

The emergency services were dispatched around 1.50pm and attempted to save Panettiere but she could not be revived.

Zach was ‘very emotional’ while the medical staff were ‘working on Hayden’, but his brother reportedly remained stoic until after she was declared dead.

Best known for her roles in Heroes and Nashville, a representative confirmed the actress’ death on Monday, saying her family would remember her as an ‘incredible light’.

First responders had been called out to attend a woman suffering from ‘cardiac arrest’ with reports that the star had suffered an ‘overdose’.

The update comes hours after her estranged mum Lesley Vogel spoke out for the first time since her daughter’s death, revealing the family had been trying to ‘get rid’ of 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,’ Vogel told NBC News.

Her mum continued: ‘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.’

Panettiere had been acting from an incredibly early age, booking her first commercials at just 11 months old, before moving to TV and film at four.

Vogel claimed that Hickerson had ‘enabled’ Panettiere in the past so the family had been concerned about their relationship for a long time.

She claimed she had known they were still together, despite the pair publicly distancing themselves, something that was echoed by a TMZ source.

A source claimed the couple were still together privately even when publicly Panettiere had distanced herself from him, on the advice of her team.

Hickerson pleaded no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend in 2021. He was sentenced to 45 days in jail for injuring the actress, as well as four years of formal probation, 52 domestic violence classes, $500 in restitution and a five-year protective order.

Vogel has now shared wishes that things had been different between her and her daughter, saying Panettiere had ‘lost her way’ in the world of entertainment.

Their relationship was strained, with her mum serving as her manager until she was 19, before they had gone ‘the no-contact route’.

In May, Vogel told Page Six: ‘As many parents of entertainment children [know], we are all too familiar with the painful observation of watching the self-destructive paths they sometimes choose.’

To NBC News she now added: ‘I think it becomes very difficult to be true to yourself and I think Hayden sadly lost her way and I wish it were different. I wish she had stayed true to herself because she had many incredible attributes.’

‘I just feel that she’s with her brother and they’re at peace,’ Vogel said through tears Tuesday.

In 2023, Hayden’s brother, Jansen Panettiere, died suddenly aged 28 from cardiomegaly (enlarged heart), coupled with aortic valve complications.

It was previously reported that Hickerson had a request for his past felony domestic violence charges to be reduced or expunged by a judge three days before her death.

But the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office confirmed to Page Six that Judge Olivia Rosales denied the request.

Panettiere had spoken out against Hickerson after his arrest in 2020, saying she wanted to ’empower others in abusive relationships’.

‘I am prepared to do my part to make sure this man never hurts anyone again,’ she had said at the time. ‘I’m grateful for my support system, which helped me find the courage to regain my voice and my life.’

Panettiere candidly wrote about suffering physical abuse in her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning and also admitted her struggles to cut him off.

It’s unknown how long they had been back together but TMZ’s source suggested they were an item while she was promoting her memoir, months before her death.

A cause of death has still not been shared for Panettiere but the Greenville County Coroner’s Office confirmed that an autopsy has been ‘completed’.

A prrevious statement from the coroner said: ‘At autopsy no signs of trauma were discovered that would have contributed to the death.

‘The cause and manner of death remain pending further investigation and the completion of additional studies.’

Other reports confirmed that Naloxone was found at the scene, which is used to counteract the effects of an opioid overdose.

Her ex-fiancé Wladimir Klitschko, who has full custody of their daughter Kaya, 11, shared a moving tribute to the ‘talented’ Panettiere.

He wrote that she had ‘left this world far too soon’, adding: ‘Nothing will erase the times we shared or the place she had in our lives…’

The Ukrainian boxer said for Kaya he will ‘always speak of her mother with respect and make sure she remembers the person she was’.