The Nashville star’s death came just five days before her 37th birthday – and only three months after she sat down with CBS Mornings host Gayle King to promote her brutally candid memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning.
“It was hard when she was here that day,” King chillingly recalled after Panettiere’s death. “She was still, clearly still struggling.”
Panettiere had endured staggering personal turmoil. Her battle with postpartum depression after the 2014 birth of daughter Kaya, now 11, was followed by a descent into alcohol and pill addiction that required multiple trips to rehab.
Then, in 2023, Panettiere was shattered by the sudden death of her beloved younger brother, Jansen, from an enlarged heart at just 28.
Yet she continued trying to rebuild her life and career – until her final, fateful trip.
On Aug. 15, Panettiere reportedly flew from Los Angeles to South Carolina with Hickerson.
The following afternoon, at approximately 1:51 p.m., cops and paramedics raced to Greenville’s Judson Mill Lofts after a frantic 911 call reported an unresponsive woman in cardiac arrest.