Hayden Panettiere’s boyfriend Brian Hickerson legal blow days before her death
Hayden Panettiere’s on-and-off partner Brian Hickerson reportedly suffered a legal setback in the days before her death aged 36.
A representative for the US actress – best known for her roles in Heroes and Nashville – confirmed her death on Monday, saying her family would remember her as an ‘incredible light’ who brought ‘immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her’.
It has now been reported that her boyfriend Hickerson had a request for his past felony domestic violence charges to be reduced or expunged by a judge three days before her death.
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.
But the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office confirmed to Page Six that Judge Olivia Rosales denied Hickerson’s request.
The prosecution reportedly protested both his motions to have the record expunged or reduced to a misdemeanour during an August 13 hearing.
This is also said to be the second time Hickerson has made such an appeal to the DA’s office, after he reportedly made the same request in July 2025 and was similarly denied.
In Hickerson’s petition for dismissal, it’s noted that he had fulfilled the conditions of his probation, according to court documents obtained by the publication.
Hickerson was arrested in 2020 on multiple felony charges, including four charges of corporal injury on a spouse/cohabitant, two charges of assault with a deadly weapon, and one charge of intimidating a witness, and also faced a misdemeanour charge of battery on a spouse/cohabitant.
The charges against Hickerson stemmed from alleged incidents from May 2019 to January 2020. The majority of the charges were dropped during his subsequent sentencing the following year.
After his arrest, the Heroes star said: ‘I am coming forward with the truth about what happened to me with the hope that my story will empower others in abusive relationships to get the help they need and deserve.
‘I am prepared to do my part to make sure this man never hurts anyone again. 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 off Hickerson, who it has since been revealed she was still in a relationship with in the months before her death.
‘Getting an abusive person out of your life is like trying to rip a weed out that is so entangled into your life, and every time you pull it out another weed pops back up and you’re like, I thought I killed this,’ she told Us Weekly in May.
‘They always manage to find a way to slither back in, even if you’re an incredibly strong-willed person… I still struggled to fully put a kibosh to it for a while.’
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