Hayden Panettiere, Brian Hickerson Relationship: Identified as Girlfriend

Leading up to her death, Panettiere was up front with the complicated status of her relationship with Hickerson. In 2023, she acknowledged that there were “feelings” rekindled in their romance, but told the New York Times that any return to their prior dating dynamic was “contingent on him continuing on this road of recovery.”

When it came to letting Hickerson—who served 45 days of jail time after pleading no contest to two counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend in 2020—back into her life at all, she maintained, “I did not do any of this lightly.”

Following the Remember the Titans star’s death, her father Skip Panettiere emphasized the family’s “profound sadness” over the loss. 

“She was an incredible light,” he said in a statement to People, “and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her—and to the millions who watched her onscreen.”

For more stars who shared kind words in Panettiere’s memory, keep reading…