Hayden Panettiere was 16 when drugs first arrived in her life in Hollywood.
Ahead of a red carpet event for the hit series Heroes, she has said someone on her team handed her a pill to help amp up her energy. The hit sci-fi NBC series had catapulted the teen into a household name – and that brought with it intense pressure and exhaustion she says felt overwhelming.
“Within minutes, a wave of energy washed over me, like I’d just woken up from the most refreshing night’s sleep of my life,” Panettiere wrote about that pill in her memoir, which was released just months before her death.
She called it “the gateway drug that ushered me toward the good of pharmaceuticals and the downfall of addiction”.
The star’s sudden death at the age of 36 has placed a renewed focus on her struggles with mental health and substance abuse, and re-ignited a discussion about the pressures of Hollywood on child stars.
The coroner’s office in Greenville, South Carolina said crews treated a woman in “cardiac arrest” and her autopsy showed “no signs of trauma”.
No cause of death has been released, though additional tests are yet to be completed.
Audio from police dispatchers and crews who responded to the address said they were responding to a “cardiac arrest” and detailed their efforts to resuscitate the woman after a possible “overdose”. Panettiere’s ex boyfriend, Brian Hickerson – who has admitted to abusing her – and his brother Zack, were with Panettiere when emergency services came, according to a police report.
There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on their part, according to police.
It is not known if drugs or alcohol played a factor in her death, but the US Drug Enforcement Agency is joining an investigation into her death, according to US media reports.
Panettiere is one of many actors who has openly struggled with addiction after exposure to fame at an early age, which addiction experts told the BBC can put people at risk for mental health and substance abuse issues.
It can sometimes seem to the rest of the world that child actors have “everything” at their fingertips – like fame and money, said Lucas Trautman, the medical director of Oxford Treatment Center, an addiction treatment centre in Mississippi.
“But it’s important to remember that they were also exposed during a developmental time to many adult aspects of life that the rest of us weren’t – including traumatic experiences – and so that gives them unique risk factors for addiction,” Trautman said.
Panettiere’s death comes after she published a memoir where she discussed at length her issues with addiction, her postpartum depression and the loss of her 28-year-old brother.
Panettiere’s decision to publicly share her struggles is worthy of respect, said William Moyers, the vice-president of public affairs for Hazelden Betty Ford, the largest nonprofit addiction treatment provider in the US. But he said the constant public scrutiny she faced may not have allowed her room to address her mental health in private.
“Her entire life from the beginning was centred in the intense public spotlight, and this didn’t give Hayden much in the way of a respite,” said Moyers, who has been in recovery from an addiction since 1989.
