Hayden Panettiere experienced excruciating back pain before her unexpected death, according to a friend.
“I know she suffered earlier this year with her back,” Panettiere’s good friend and hairdresser, Erick Orellana, told Page Six on Monday, August 17.
Orellana added that Panettiere’s pain was “really severe” and she had a hard time getting around.
“At one point, it was even hard for her to move her legs,” he said.
Earlier this year, Panettiere was photographed walking in an airport on crutches with on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson.
“Hayden has been privately managing a temporary nerve condition, which is the reason she was seen using crutches,” the actress’ spokesperson said to Us in a March statement.
A few months later, the Nashville actress opened up about how she was recovering from a paralyzing injury.
“I quite literally woke up and felt nothing but pins and needles from my waist down. I wasn’t able to do any of this,” she told her trainer in a May interview for Women’s Health. “I wasn’t able to bend my toes, lift my foot at all. No one was able to give me a solid answer. It was like that for so long. I was sitting there going, ‘Oh my gosh am I going to be paralyzed for the rest of my life?’”
Panettiere admitted that the experience was the “scariest thing” that had ever happened to her physically. She confessed it was unlike any other injury she had endured over the years.
“I was bucked up by a zebra, [I] had two vertebrae that were pushed into my neck. I had to learn how to figure skate so I was falling all the time. A lot of pulled muscles,” she recalled of previous on set injuries. “It’s just so important to keep your muscles tight so they are holding your skeleton together.”
Us confirmed on Sunday, August 16, that Panettiere died at age 36. An autopsy has since been completed but an official cause of death has yet to be confirmed.
Hayden Panettiere opened up about her unplanned acting break more than one year before her untimely and shocking death. “I had taken four years off. Didn’t know or plan to, but that’s just the way it panned out,” Panettiere exclusively told Us back in 2025. “And I desperately needed it.” Panettiere explained at the time […]
“It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden,” Panettiere’s father, Skip, said in a statement to Us at the time. “She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her — and to the millions who watched her onscreen.”
According to a Greenville City Police Department incident report obtained by WYFF, Brian, 37, and his brother, Zach Hickerson, discovered the actress was unresponsive. Brian provided authorities a “bag of medication” that Panettiere was “currently on,” per the report.
“After EMS officially declared Hayden deceased, I escorted Zach and Brian out of the apartment,” the report stated. “I observed Zach to be very emotional while EMS were working on Hayden. Brian did not become emotional until EMS declared her officially deceased.”
