Hayden Panettiere’s tell-all memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning was released shortly before her shock death at 36

Hayden Panettiere had released her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning just three months before her tragic death at the age of 36.

The unflinching memoir also included revealing details about the late star’s personal life, battles with addiction and toxic experiences as a young actress in Hollywood.

Representatives for the former child star announced on Sunday: ‘It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden.’

The Palisades, New York-born actress, known for her roles on the hit NBC series Heroes and musical drama Nashville, was remembered as ‘an incredible light and a force of nature.’ 

The cause of death for Panettiere, who leaves behind an 11-year-old daughter, was not immediately clear. But law enforcement sources have confirmed to TMZ that police responded to an incident involving the actress and an investigation is ongoing.

The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for Panettiere for further comment on the story. 

A synopsis for the book described it as ‘a rare and intimate glimpse into her life behind closed doors, opening up about postpartum depression, addiction and recovery, trauma, domestic abuse, and loss.’

The late star opened up on a number of personal topics as she promoted the memoir in a series of interviews earlier this year. 

In May, Panettiere told The Hollywood Reporter about the emotional process she encountered in pouring her life onto paper.

‘One of the things that I was most terrified about, when deciding whether or not to write this book, was that I knew what was going to come along with it,’ she said. ‘I had to sit with myself and make a decision, and I realized it was more important for me to share my stories and to wipe the slate clean.’

Panettiere told the outlet that ‘one of the harder things to talk about’ in the book, which had been released by Grand Central Publishing this past May 12, was family issues including her estrangement from her mother and her brother Jansen Panettiere’s 2003 passing at the age of 28.

‘While writing it, I realized even more so how much of a toll it took on me,’ Panettiere said. ‘And then of course, anytime that my little brother comes up.

‘It’s still a subject where I’m moments from bursting into tears any time I try to talk about it. Time can be a great healer, but in this case, my grief just seems to evolve. It’s something I’ll never get over.’

Panettiere said that she had been ‘fiercely protective of people’ amid the writing of the memoir, and ‘felt very strongly about my ability to tell my stories and make them entertaining enough to put in a book, without having to drag people through the mud.’ 

She added, ‘I just had to speak my truth – and it’s mine alone.’

Panettiere said that the initial feedback she received following the release of the book had been heartwarming and positive.

‘Reading those comments from people within the industry and outside of it, it makes me feel like I made the right decision to write the book,’ she told the outlet.

Speaking with Buzzfeed in May, Panettiere said that her desire to pen a memoir had been driven by a life she described as ‘so crazy and so full of stories.’

She added that ‘when the opportunity presented itself, I thought, “This could be an incredible thing, and this is also the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”‘

The actress said that she strove not to leave out ‘any of the details’ about her life, for better or worse.

She said, ‘If I’m telling my life story, I’m doing it 110 percent … I’ve always tried to keep my life as private as possible, but I basically just ripped the band-aid off. It was like, “We’re going for it.”‘

Panettiere said the book gave her a chance to correct misconceptions about her created by the work she did and headlines she made.

‘Now, I get to share my life for the first time in my own words and put rumors to rest,’ Panettiere said. ‘I think a lot of people are going to read This Is Me and be surprised by how they previously viewed me.’

She said that at times, the process as an author had left her with difficult decisions to make, as she questioned if she had been ‘going too hard, or being too honest.

‘It wasn’t something I had done before – and here I am basically laying it all out for everyone,’ she said. ‘It went back to the natural feeling of concern that people will take what I say the wrong way or judge me the wrong way.’

Panettiere said that putting the ‘brutally, painfully honest’ memoir together helped show her how she had grown through difficult stretches of her life.

‘Sometimes, when you’re actually growing, you don’t realize it until looking back in hindsight,’ she said. ‘You’ve changed, and you don’t realize you’ve gone through this period of growth until much later.

‘I wanted to shake all the emotions off that were going on in my head, like being sad. I just wanted to pull myself out of it. So, I don’t really think anything like that clicked until the book was completely done.’

Sources told TMZ that Panettiere had been recently complaining of back pain and that her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, flew from Los Angeles to see her just one day before her tragic passing.

The Hollywood star earned multiple award nominations across her career, most notably while playing cheerleader Claire Bennet on Heroes and Juliette Barnes on Nashville.

She also appeared in the Scream franchise as Kirby Reed, and lent her voice to the video game Until Dawn. 

She had relinquished custody of her daughter to her ex, former heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko, while struggling with postpartum depression in 2018.

Panettiere first started acting at just 11 months old when she appeared on screen in a commercial.

Her full-time acting career then began in 1994 when she played Sarah Roberts in the ABC soap opera One Life to Live until 1997. She then played Lizzie Spaulding in the CBS soap opera Guiding Light from 1996 to 2000.

For her role on Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, she was nominated for a Young Artist Award and Grammy Award, making her the fifth-youngest nominee for a Grammy.

Her other credits include Remember the Titans, Ally McBeal, Racing Stripes, Ice Princess and I Love You, Beth Cooper.

Panettiere also recorded a number of songs for the films and television programs she was in, including My Hero is You for the Disney Channel film Tiger Cruise and I Fly for the Disney film Ice Princess, which she co-starred in with the late Michelle Trachtenberg.

Her first single not associated with an acting role, the reggae-infused Wake Up Call, was digitally released on August 5, 2008.

Clothing brand Candie’s announced it was premiering an ad campaign for the single in late July of that year, and provided additional promotion for the song with a television ad and a music video starring Sebastian Stan, who played Panettiere’s brother in The Architect.

More recently, Panettiere has come out as bisexual.

‘It’s sad that I had to wait till I was 36 years old to share that part of me, but better late than never, right?’ the Nashville alum told Us Weekly in May.

‘I’ve chosen to share it with the world, I’m comfortable saying I’m bisexual. I’m comfortable to confidently say that, yes, I am bisexual. I said it!’

Despite having little privacy due to ‘paparazzi always outside waiting for me,’ Panettiere still managed to secretly date women, whom she preferred to men from ‘a very, very young age.’

‘[I was] much more into women,’ the two-time Golden Globe nominee said.

‘But, yeah, I have explored it, but I don’t think I ever had the courage, because I hadn’t shared this with anybody.

‘I didn’t really have the courage to throw myself fully, emotionally into it, because then if I did fall in love, that wasn’t something that I wanted to ever have to hide. I didn’t feel confident enough, and I was too afraid to really let that part of me explore that part of me.’