Celebrity
Hayden Panettiere Dead at 36
Hayden Panettiere, beloved television star known for her iconic roles, has died at age 36. Full details on the developing story here.
Beloved television star Hayden Panettiere has died at the age of 36, sources confirm to ABC News.
Panettiere started her professional acting career on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live in 1994 as the legacy character Sarah Roberts, the daughter of Tina Lord (Andrea Evans) and Cord Roberts (John Loprieno).
In 1997, she moved from One Life to Live to Guiding Light, where she portrayed the legacy character Phillip Spaulding (Grant Aleksander) and Beth Raines (Beth Chamberlin), and remained on the show until 2000.
Throughout the years, she appeared on numerous primetime television shows, with her big break coming on Ally McBeal in 2002.
The actress lent her voice to the beloved Disney/Square Enix crossover video game series Kingdom Hearts, in which she portrayed Kairi in 2002. She later added the character of Xion as the series continued to develop in 2010.
In 2006, she became an internationally recognized name for her role in the NBC drama Heroes, where she portrayed one of the main characters on the series, the high-school cheerleader Claire Bennett. The series was known for it’s initial tagline, “Save the cheerleader, Save the world,” of which Panettiere was the focus.
In 2012, Panettiere was able to show off her musical talents on the big stage as she took on the role of Juliette Barnes in the ABC primetime series Nashville, where she stayed until 2018. There she was part of the series soundtrack, appearing on numerous tracks on the The Music of Nashville albums.
The actress’s latest credits included the video game Until Dawn, appearances in Scream 4 and Scream VI, and the feature films A Breed Apart and Sleepwalker.
In addition to her work as an actress, Panettiere was a loving mother to her daughter, Kaya Evdokia Klitschko, with her former fiancé, professional Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko.
Specific details around Panettiere’s death were not made available at the point of publication.
