By TRH Entertainment Desk
Lesley Vogel says the family had long wanted Brian Hickerson out of her daughter’s life — and that he was there when Panettiere died.
Mumbai, August 19, 2026 — In her first public comments since the death of her daughter, Hayden Panettiere’s mother Lesley Vogel spoke to NBC News this week, addressing both her daughter’s final years and the boyfriend she says the family had tried to push out of the picture.
Panettiere, 36, best known for her roles in Heroes and Nashville, died Sunday in Greenville, South Carolina, where she had been staying temporarily. She was found unresponsive and in cardiac arrest; officials say an autopsy turned up no signs of trauma, and her cause of death remains under investigation by the Greenville County Coroner’s Office and Greenville Police Department.
Vogel told NBC News that Panettiere’s boyfriend, actor Brian Hickerson, was present when the actress died — and made clear the family had wanted him gone from her life well before that: “This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of … was with her at her death,” Vogel said.
Vogel also told the outlet that Hickerson had repeatedly enabled her daughter over the years, which is why she and Panettiere’s father had long been concerned about him.
Hickerson, 37, and his brother Zach were reportedly with Panettiere at the scene. Police records cited by NBC News describe Zach as visibly shaken, while Brian reportedly stayed composed and showed officers medication he said Panettiere had been taking.
Hickerson and Panettiere first got together in 2018 and had an on-and-off relationship marked by public turmoil, including a 2021 case in which Hickerson pleaded no contest to two felony domestic violence counts and was sentenced to 45 days in custody, four years of probation, and mandated counselling. Panettiere wrote about the abuse in her 2026 memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning.
Beyond her comments about Hickerson, Vogel reflected more broadly on her daughter’s struggles, describing Panettiere as enormously talented but worn down by an industry she entered as an infant. She said young people who grow up in show business often face intense pressure to compromise who they are — and that, in her view, her daughter had drifted from herself in the process.
Vogel added that she wished things had gone differently, and that she takes some comfort in believing Panettiere is now at peace with her younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, who died in 2023 of heart-related complications at age 28.
Vogel and Panettiere had reportedly been estranged for some time before the actress’s death, a rift Panettiere touched on in her memoir when describing a relationship that blurred the line between mother and manager. Vogel has previously pushed back on that characterization.
Vogel said she plans to speak with investigators but said she has no further details to share about the circumstances of her daughter’s death at this time.
Panettiere is survived by her 11-year-old daughter, Kaya, whom she shared with her ex-partner, retired heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko.
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