Hayden Panettiere‘s estranged mom has heated words for the actress’ on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson.
Lesley Vogel called out the 37-year-old in a statement addressing her daughter’s Aug. 16 passing.
“This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death,” she told NBC News on Aug. 18, “and that was Brian Hickerson.”
“I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments,” Vogel, 70, continued, “and I think young people who grow up in the <a href="https://comicvibe.com/bfl-canada-on-the-entertainment-industrys-most-overlooked-exposure/” title=”BFL Canada on the entertainment industry's most overlooked exposure”>entertainment industry—it is a struggle and it’s a very challenging industry and it’s not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path.”
E! News has reached out to Hickerson’s attorney for comment but hasn’t heard back.
According to a Greenville Police Department report obtained by NBC News, Hickerson and his brotherZach Hickersonwere inside the South Carolina apartment complex where authorities responded to Panettiere experiencing cardiac arrest.
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Brian Hickerson Was With Hayden Panettiere When She Died: Police Report
Per the report, Hickerson did not become emotional until Panettiere was pronounced dead just after 2:30 p.m. local time. His brother, however, was “very emotional,” while emergency responders were “working on Hayden.”
Hickerson later provided emergency responders with a “bag of medication” Panettiere was taking at the time of her death, per the report.
While the status of their relationship was not publicly known at the time of Panettiere’s death, Hickerson was with theBring It Onalum during a flight from Los Angeles to South Carolina Aug. 15, E! News previously learned.
Panettiere’s dynamic with her mom was also fraught over the years, with the pair estranged ahead of her death. As the Heroesalum told Us Weekly in 2025, “Unfortunately, we don’t have a relationship right now.”
“But that doesn’t mean that I don’t leave the door open for the opportunity to present itself one day,” she said at the time. “It’s hard for me to say, but I’ve chosen to be brutally honest. So that’s the honest truth of it.”
Vogel confirmed their estrangement earlier this year, when Panettiere—whose brother Jansen Panettieredied in 2023 at 28—detailed their tumultuous past in her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning.
“The present drama is partially to sell books,” Vogel told Page Six in a May interview. “There is a personality ‘style’ which manifests as a need for control, entitlement and a lack of empathy. The major fear is that someone will see through the mask they present to the world and discover who they truthfully are.”
For a look at Panettiere’s life in photos, keep reading…
