At just 11 months old, she first faced a camera in a TV commercial for Playskook train, "but I don't know if that could really be considered an introduction to acting because I don't think that was involved at that time. I didn't have any lines, I was just playing," actress Hayden Panettiere told Entertainment Weekly in 2023.
At the age of four, she debuted as an actress in the long-running soap opera One Life to Live (1994-1997) and later in Guiding Light (1996-2000), the longest-running soap opera in history with 72 years of duration. "I was like a little soldier, and I always have been. Saying no was not an option," Hayden confessed to The Hollywood Reporter about her experience as a child prodigy actress.
And she added: "I never said no. They just told me, 'Here are your scenes, here are your lines, memorize them, get in the right position, do what the director tells you.' I accepted the instructions." Those were the guidelines followed by a myriad of child prodigies, from the classics like Elizabeth Taylor and Roddy McDowall to those of her generation like Lindsay Lohan and Macaulay Culkin.
Unlike some of her colleagues, Hayden did not end up as a broken toy, but years later she would confess that not everything had been a bed of roses. For example, earlier this year she published her memoirs This Is Me: A Reckoning where she revealed that at 15, her own team gave her "happy pills" to relax during promotional campaigns and red carpets.
In 2006, at 16 years old, she starred in the series Heroes (2006-2010) and several years later continued her path as a small screen star with the musical series Nashville (2012-2016), where she reached global stardom after showcasing her singing talent.
Her mother, Lesley Vogel, a former soap opera actress, had managed her career firmly, and after two decades decided to cut ties. "I no longer want us to work together. I just want you to be my mother," she commented in an interview, to which Vogel replied: "You owe me one."
That led to a fracture that resulted in them not speaking since then. As she told Daily Mail during the promotion of her memoirs, "after 20 years of trauma, chaos, addictions, and accusations, I felt that I had no choice but to cut all contact."
As expected, working day and night, her first romantic relationships emerged on set. She dated Stephen Colletti with whom she starred in Laguna Beach and Milo Ventimiglia, her co-star in Heroes, who was 12 years older.
The first of her non-showbiz partners was Ukrainian heavyweight boxerWladimir Klitschko, with whom she had an on-off relationship from 2009 to 2018. It was with him that she experienced motherhood after the birth of their daughter Kaya Evdokia in 2014.
When they finally separated, aware of her emotional fragility, the actress granted him custody of their daughter as she had experienced postpartum depression and was undergoing treatment for substance abuse.
That was one of the toughest decisions of her life, as she revealed on the podcast On Purpose: "The idea that someone might think I would just hand over my daughter and be okay with it is heartbreaking. Nothing could be further from the truth." And she added: "I think there is a misconception that in the past I was forced into treatment, when in reality, I sought it out myself."
Brian Hickerson, her last relationship, was the most contentious of all, as the aspiring actor was arrested for domestic violence against the actress and for intimidating a witness from filing a report.
Personally, she also suffered an emotional blow when her younger brother, Jansen, passed away in 2023 at the age of 28 due to cardiomegaly. "He was my light," she confessed.
Unfortunately, Hayden has passed away five days before turning 37. Her father, Skip Panettiere, described her in a statement as "an incredible person, a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her, and to the millions who saw her on screen." The reasons for her death are currently unknown, and the police have already opened an investigation.