Hayden Panettiere smiling, wearing a red and black top, at the AOL Build Speaker Series in New York City, January 2017.
Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images
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“I Feel Like I Have A Lot More Life To Live,” Hayden Panettiere Said in One of Her Final Interviews

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“I finally feel like I have shaken off all of this darkness and this negativity and that means that I’ve closed one door and another door is opened and I can feel it open and all the possibilities, all the exciting possibilities. I feel like I have a lot more life to live.”

Those were among the last public words from Hayden Panettiere, spoken in one of her final interviews as she described a hard-won sense of renewal. The actress was found unresponsive Sunday afternoon in Greenville, South Carolina, and pronounced dead at the scene. She was 36.

Hayden Panettiere smiling with long blonde hair, wearing a red and black patterned top at a Build Series event.
Long blonde hair down, Panettiere appeared at AOL’s Build Series in New York City on January 5, 2017, to discuss her role on the TV series “Nashville.” Photo by Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images.

In that same interview, Panettiere spoke at length about turning a corner in her life. “I finally feel like I have shaken off all of this darkness and this negativity and that means that I’ve closed one door and another door is opened and I can feel it open and all the possibilities, all the exciting possibilities,” she said — words that now read as a poignant marker of where she believed she stood.

Hayden Panettiere smiling in a red blazer at the "Blonde" premiere, with white roses in the background.
Dressed in a bold red suit, Hayden Panettiere attended the “Blonde” premiere at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre on September 13, 2022. Photo by Michael Buckner / Variety via Getty Images.

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Her father, Skip Panettiere, confirmed the death and asked for privacy for the family. Police say the preliminary investigation shows no signs of foul play, and the cause remains under investigation by the Greenville Police Department and the coroner’s office.

Hayden Panettiere in a black satin dress and coat posing on the red carpet in front of a Scream VI backdrop.
At AMC Lincoln Square Theater in New York City, Hayden Panettiere stepped out in an all-black look for the world premiere of Paramount’s “Scream VI” on March 6, 2023. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images.

Panettiere had been open about her struggles in recent years. In May she published “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” a memoir that walked through postpartum depression, opioid and alcohol addiction, stints in rehab, and losing custody of her daughter, Kaya, now 11. The book was widely read as an attempt to reckon publicly with the darkness she described leaving behind — the same darkness she said, in that final interview, she had finally shaken off.

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