Hayden Panettiere's Mom Slams Brian Hickerson After Her Death

Hayden Panettiere's estranged mom Lesley Vogel spoke out about her death, saying the family has been "trying to get rid" of her on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson for "quite some time."ByOlivia Evans Aug 18, 2026 7:59 PM| Updated 5 minutes agoTagsBrian Hickerson Was With Hayden Panettiere When She Died: Police ReportHayden 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 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 E! News, Hickerson and his brother Zach Hickerson were inside the South Carolina apartment complex where authorities responded to Panettiere experiencing cardiac arrest. 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 the Bring It On alum 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 Heroes alum told Us Weekly in 2025, "Unfortunately, we don’t have a relationship right now."Lester Cohen/WireImage“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 Panettiere died 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… Photo by Ann Limongello/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images1994Photo by Margaret Norton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images1996Photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images1998Photo by Jean-Paul Aussenard/WireImage2001Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images2003Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images2004Photo by M. Caulfield/WireImage for ABC Cable Networks Group2004Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images2005Photo by Jean-Paul Aussenard/WireImage2006Photo by Sylvain Gaboury/FilmMagic2006Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images2008Photo by Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)2010Jason Merritt/Getty Images2012Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images2013Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCUniversal via Getty Images2014Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Time Warner Cable2014Lars Baron/Bongarts/Getty Images2015Rick Diamond/Getty Images2016Roy Rochlin/FilmMagic2017Hayden Panettiere/Twitter 2018Amanda Edwards/Getty Images2019 Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images2022Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images2023Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images2024Jeff Neira/Disney via Getty Images2026For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App