A-list actress Hayden Panettiere has died at age 36. She was found unresponsive by a friend inside a Greenville, South Carolina home on Sunday morning, TMZ reported.
Emergency responders were dispatched to the home in response to a call about a person in “cardiac arrest” and an “unresponsive female,” according to TMZ.
Panettiere’s representative confirmed she died on Sunday, August 16. Her cause of death was not disclosed.
“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 rep said in a statement to ABC News.
Panettiere is best known for her starring roles in Heroes (2006–2010), Scream (2011–2023), and the ABC/CMT series Nashville (2012–2018).
The New York native was cast in the soap opera “One Life to Live” when she was only 4 years old. She became a household name as a child star before finding fame with a starring role alongside Denzel Washington in the 2000 classic, “Remember the Titans.”
In her memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” the actress opened up about her addiction to “happy pills,” opioids and alcoholism at age 15.
“They were to make me peppy during interviews,” Panettiere told PEOPLE in 2022. “I had no idea that this was not an appropriate thing, or what door that would open for me when it came to my addiction.”
“As I got older, the drugs and alcohol became something I almost couldn’t live without,” she shared.
A source close to Hayden tells TMZ the actress had been complaining about back pain in the past year.
Panettiere’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson flew from Los Angeles to South Carolina on Saturday. It isn’t clear if he is the friend who found her body and contacted police.
In her memoir, Panettiere revealed that she experienced postpartum depression after her daughter, Kaya, was born in December 2014.
Panettiere gave full custody of Kaya, now 11, to her ex-fiancé, Wladimir Klitschko in 2018.
“I just knew that if I wanted to… I knew how bad a place I was in,” Panettiere told Fox News Digital last month. “I hid it from my daughter as much as I could.”