In a new interview, Lesley Vogel spoke about the ultimatum she gave the actress.
Hayden Panettiere‘s mother is breaking her silence about the year of no contact that preceded her daughter’s death, and the painful phone call that made it unavoidable.
In an interview with Good Morning Americathat aired on Monday (August 24), Lesley Vogel shared that she severed ties after Panettiere called to announce her return to on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson. The news came after Vogel spent roughly six weeks visiting Los Angeles to help the actress with her health struggles.
“When I got the phone call from her saying, ‘I’m going to be with the person I love,’ and I just lost it,” Vogel said, per <a href="https://people.com/hayden-panettiere-estranged-mom-explains-why-she-and-star-stopped-communicating-one-year-before-her-death-12066114″ rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>People. “I could not believe that she had gone that far back. That he had been successful in reeling her back in with all of the things he had done to her.”
For the sake of her own well-being, Vogel says she distanced herself.
“I needed it. I needed to have that pocket of time, of course, I thought it was going to be a pocket of time,” she said. “I did not by any stretch of the imagination think that this was gonna happen to Hayden. I don’t know why. I just didn’t.”
In a separate interview with the New York Times, Vogel said her daughter was experiencing “pain” in her lower extremities that made walking difficult and left her unable to “physically function properly.”
Vogel also told GMA that ceding custody of Panettiere’s then-four-year-old daughter Kaya to ex Wladimir Klitschko was a “catalyst.”
“That was probably the catalyst… In my opinion, that was the catalyst that she just couldn’t keep those demons away,” she said. “I think she struggled and Brian came into her life, she was vulnerable.”
Panettiere died on August 16 and her initial autopsy found no signs of trauma nor foul play. TMZ reported that she allegedly went into cardiac arrest following a possible overdose. The DEA recently joined the investigation into her death.
Hickerson and his brother Zach were with Panettiere at an Airbnb in Greenville, South Carolina at the time. Neither of them have been accused of any crimes in connection to Panettiere’s death.
It was later reported that Hickerson had multiple arrests and criminal charges Hickerson reportedly took domestic violence classes after he was accused of punching the star in the face in 2020
