Hayden Panettiere candidly opened up just weeks before her death about her decision to give up custody of her daughter during a bout of postpartum depression.
Her father Skip confirmed the news of her death on Sunday, describing her as “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.”
He requested privacy for the family as they “take time to process this unimaginable loss.” No cause of death has been disclosed.
In one of her last interviews, published as the July cover story for the parenting outlet Momé, Ms Panettiere spoke candidly about the harrowing birth of her daughter, Kaya, in December 2014, with her former fiancé, Wladimir Klitschko.
Hayden Panettiere died at the age of 36
|
GETTY
She revealed that she haemorrhaged severely and required seven blood transfusions alongside emergency surgery to repair failing blood vessels.
“I closed my eyes and just prayed for my daughter to be okay. I truly was ready to go if it was my time. Kaya being safe and healthy was all that mattered,” she said.
Yet within days of the birth, Ms recalled feeling “nothing” when she looked at her newborn. She turned to wine to cope, which she said developed into a full alcohol dependency. “It was how I would get through each day,” she told the magazine.
Despite undergoing treatment, Ms Panettiere felt the underlying depression driving her drinking was never properly addressed. “I wish more people had known what it was at the time. Maybe I wouldn’t have waited so long to get help,” she said.
In 2018, whilst grappling with addiction, she made the decision to sign over full custody of Kaya to Mr Klitschko, the Ukrainian former heavyweight boxing champion, who was living in a different country at the time.
“It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, nor was it a decision I even wanted to make,” she told Momé. “I was going through a really challenging time in my life. I knew I needed to be able to put her first so that I could get the help I needed and be the mum she needed me to be.”
In her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, published in May, Ms Panettiere delved further into the toll that the separation took on her.
“Not being under the same roof with her every day has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life, and it’s hard to describe the layers of emotion including sadness, resentment, and anger I’ve felt because of it,” she wrote.
Hayden Panettiere featured on Jay Shetty’s podcast just months before her death
|
ON PURPOSE WITH JAY SHETTY
She also said: “She is the greatest gift of my life, with all the best parts of her father and me.”
Six years after relinquishing custody, Ms Panettiere described a close bond with her daughter. “I love my daughter, and I’m so proud of the young woman she is becoming. I talk to her all the time, and I feel so connected to her. She’s like a mini-me,” she said.
In a separate interview with E! News, Ms Panettiere revealed that 11-year-old Kaya had begun expressing interest in pursuing acting.
Meanwhile, in a podcast interview with Jay Shetty recorded three months before her death, Ms Panettiere spoke with optimism about the future.
Wladimir Klitschko is the father of Panettiere’s daughter
|
PA“I finally feel like I have shaken off all of this darkness and this negativity,” she said. “I’ve closed one door and another door is opened … I can feel all the exciting possibilities. I feel like I have a lot more life to live.”
Her final published words, in the Momé interview, were directed at mothers facing their own struggles: “You’re stronger than you know. And you’re going to be just fine.”