Hayden Panettiere, actor in Heroes and Nashville, dies aged 36

Hayden Panettiere, the actor known for her roles in television shows such as Heroes and Nashville, has died at the age of 36.

Panettiere’s death was confirmed in a statement from her representative to the Guardian on Sunday night, after it was first reported on US network ABC News. No cause of death was given.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden. 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,” her father, Skip Panettiere, said in a statement.

He asked for privacy “as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss.”

Born in 1989, Panettiere was a child star who began acting at just 11 months old, appearing in a toy commercial. She made her big screen debut as the voice of Dot in A Bug’s Life, aged just nine.

In 2000, she appeared in Remember the Titans. In 2004, Panettiere landed her first starring role as the daughter of Bill Pullman’s character in Tiger Cruise on the Disney Channel.

Panettiere rose to fame in her late teens as the invulnerable cheerleader Claire Bennet in Heroes, a series with the well-known, mysterious mantra: “Save the cheerleader, save the world.” The show was a global hit and ran for four seasons between 2006 and 2010.

Panettiere also earned two Golden Globe nominations for her performance as the troubled country music star Juliette Barnes on Nashville.

She also appeared as Kirby Reed in 2011’s Scream 4 and 2023’s Scream 6.

In 2014 she gave birth to her daughter, Kaya Klitschko, whom she had with her ex-fiancé, Ukrainian heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko. Panettiere gave full custody to Klitschko in 2018 in order to focus on recovering from postpartum depression and substance abuse.

“I didn’t know where the alcoholism was ending and the postpartum was beginning,” Panettiere said in a 2022 interview. “And I ran myself pretty ragged.”

She described her daughter as “just an amazing child. She’s smart and she’s funny and for whatever reason, she still loves me”

Earlier this year she published a memoir titled This is Me: A Reckoning, which touched on her struggles with fame, experience of postpartum depression, addiction and recovery. In the book Panettiere wrote about the troubling link she made between acting and love: “Directors, fans, and Mom praised me endlessly for my over-the-top dramatic responses. Subconsciously, I began to associate catastrophe with adoration; people loved me because make-believe bad things happened to me.”

Panettiere’s brother, Jansen, died suddenly in 2023 at the age of 28 from cardiomegaly – an enlarged heart – coupled with aortic valve complications.