By Page Six | Created at 2026-08-17 18:03:59 | Updated at 2026-08-17 19:35:35
2 hours ago
Hayden Panettiere broke down in tears over her brother Jansen’s death three months before she died at age 36.
“There’s nothing in my life that feels like losing my other half, the other half that was born to be the yin to my yang,” she said on Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcast in May, noting the siblings “were so close.”
The “Nashville” star explained that not being able to “protect” her little brother — who died of an undiagnosed heart condition at age 28 in February 2023, and also struggled with addiction — was “heartbreaking.”
“I would need a dictionary to go through all the words for all the feelings that go through your mind,” she shared.
Hayden admitted she was still processing Jansen’s death three years later.
“I collapsed and it stayed with me,” she said. “The time is the best healer, generally, but it’s been three years and every year it’s changed. The heartbreak has changed. But losing him and realizing how much of life I was gonna have to go through alone and without him.”
Hayden continued, “I always saw him as being there. The day that my parents are not here anymore, I’m gonna have to do it alone. The fact that he’s not here to be a part of my daughter’s life.”
The “Heroes” alum also remembered “screaming” and thinking to herself, “I don’t wanna live in a world” without Jansen, when he died.
“He seems so alive in my head still,” she stated. “He was such a big personality. No matter what, he was one of those people I never thought that anything could take him down or take him away.”
Hayden added that Jansen’s death was “something I don’t think I’ll ever get over.”
In her memoir, “This is Me: A Reckoning,” released on May 19, Hayden recalled learning that Jansen died from her dad, Skip Panettiere, who told her to call her mom, Lesley Vogel, and tell her the news.
“I hung up the phone, and the calm that helped me get through the call with Mom vanished,” she wrote. “I burst into tears, crawled into bed, and didn’t get out for the rest of the day.”
Elsewhere in her book, Panettiere called Jansen “the heartbeat of my life, always right there, in the center of who I am.”
She also ended her memoir with a tribute to her late brother, thanking him “for making me laugh, telling me never to take myself too seriously, and for being my best friend, always.”
Hayden shared her last Instagram tribute to Jansen in September 2025, which included a throwback photo of the pair as kids.
“My little brother Jansen would’ve turned 31 today,” she wrote. “He was a remarkable human being. He was wise beyond his years and operated at a higher spiritual level than anyone I’ve ever met. He was everything that is good and pure in this world.”
“I miss him every single day but I know his spirit is always near, watching over and protecting me and my family. I love you to infinity and beyond J and we will be together again one day.”
Hayden’s father confirmed the actress died on Sunday.
“It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden,” Skip told Page Six in a statement. “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.”
Hayden was found “unresponsive” at a luxury apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina, after suffering an apparent “overdose,” according to 911 audio obtained by Page Six.
Responders attempted to resuscitate an “unidentified female” in “cardiac arrest” with “advanced cardiac life support” and chest compressions, to no avail, per the recording.
She was pronounced dead at 2:23 p.m.
A tenant of the apartment building exclusively told Page Six that the property managers reached out to residents to keep them informed on the circumstances surrounding Hayden’s death
“The apartment complex has sent out a couple of messages saying it wasn’t anything criminal and that there’s no reason for anyone to be scared or anything like that,” the neighbor said.
The tenant noted that they believed the apartment where she died was an Airbnb rental, which Page Six has confirmed.
Hayden’s cause of death has not yet been confirmed, but cops claimed that there were “no signs of foul play.”
Her autopsy showed Hayden had “no signs of trauma” at the time of her death, the Greenville County Coroner’s Office confirmed to Page Six on Monday.
The “Scream 4” actress — who battled postpartum depression and substance abuse — flew into South Carolina from Los Angeles with her on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson the day before her death.
If you or someone you care about is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
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