Hayden Panettiere’s childhood zebra accident left her with years of pain before tragic death aged 36
Hayden Panettiere suffered injuries while making Racing Stripes as a teenager that impacted her for decades.
Panettiere, who tragically passed away aged 36 on August 16, is best known for starring in TV shows such as Heroes and Nashville, as well as movies like Scream 4, Ice Princess, and Remember the Titans.
An investigation into her death is ongoing. A coroner's report has revealed that there were no signs of 'foul play', but an official cause of death is yet to be determined at the time of writing.
In the months leading up to her death, Panettiere released her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning. In the book, the actress detailed her injuries that she sustained while filming Racing Stripes when she was just 14.
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"I kept my mouth shut and endured the pain in my back and neck," she wrote. "Over 20 years later, these injuries still bother me."
Panettiere also detailed her injuries in a 2013 interview on The Graham Norton Show, but didn't say at the time if she was still impacted by the incident.
She shared with Norton and fellow guests Dan Stevens and English comedian Micky Flanagan: "I was bucked off a zebra and ended up in the hospital with a concussion, whiplash, and two vertebrae pushed into my neck."
UNILAD has approached Warner Bros – which was behind Racing Stripes' distribution – for comment.
The actress is said to have been suffering with some pain in the lead-up to her death and was pictured using crutches at an airport in March, Entertainment Weekly reports.
Speaking to Women's Health a couple of months later, Panettiere chatted about an unexplained injury she had been dealing with.
"I quite literally woke up and felt nothing but pins and needles from my waist down. I wasn’t able to bend my toes, lift my foot at all," the mom-of-one said.
She went on to say that nobody was able to give her a 'solid answer' about why she was experiencing this.
"It was like that for so long that I was sitting there going, 'Oh, my gosh, am I going to be paralyzed for the rest of my life?'" Panettiere continued. "It’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me physically, for sure."
It is unclear if the injuries she discussed with the magazine had any links to the accident she had while filming Racing Stripes.
A timeline of Hayden Panettiere’s troubled Hollywood career
August 1989
Hayden Panettiere is born to firefighter Skip Panettiere and Lesley Vogel, who would go on to be Hayden’s manager.
1990
Panettiere appears in a commercial at 11 months old, later landing recurring roles in soap operas as a child actor.
2004/2005
Aged 15, Panettiere said someone on her team started offering her ‘happy pills’. She later tells People: “They were to make me peppy during interviews.
"I had no idea that this was not an appropriate thing, or what door that would open for me when it came to my addiction.”
2006
Aged 17, Panettiere lands one of the defining roles of her career as Claire Bennett in Heroes.
2007-2009
Panettiere later reveals several disturbing incidents that happened during this period in her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning.
Aged 18, she claims she was led onto a yacht by ‘somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector’ and placed into bed next to an ‘undressed man who was very famous’.
In 2008, she alleged a network executive kissed her on the lips at a party.
Aged 19, she said a ‘well-respected, award-winning actor’ tricked her into looking at his testicles through an unzipped fly.
In 2007, she also starts dating Heroes co-star Milo Ventimiglia - she is 18 and he is 30. They split in 2009.
2009
Panettiere starts dating Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko.
Meanwhile, her father Skip is handed two years of informal probation after pleading ‘no contest’ to spousal battery.
2013
Panettiere and Klitschko get engaged.
December 2014
Panettiere and Klitschko’s daughter Kaya is born. Panettiere endures an incredibly difficult pregnancy, hemorrhaging during her c-section and being forced to undergo a three-hour surgery.
2015
Panettiere begins suffering severe post-partum depression. She later tells Jay Shetty on his On Purpose podcast: “I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. I wasn't connecting with [Kaya] the way I should be.”
She uses alcohol to manage her mental health struggles and enters treatment when Kaya is four months old.
She later says she became dependent on medication to sleep, and then turned to drinking vodka.
2018
Klitschko presents Panettiere with custody papers asking for full custody of Kaya. After initially fighting back, she eventually accepts and Kaya goes to live with Klitschko in Ukraine.
She writes in her memoir: “Not being under the same roof with her every day has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life."
Meanwhile, her long-running role in TV show Nashville comes to an end and she doesn’t have any more TV or film roles for five years.
In the same year, she starts dating actor Brian Hickerson.
2020
Panettiere spends an eight-month stint in rehab.
She experiences brutal alcohol withdrawal symptoms including insomnia and intense headaches.
Meanwhile, her now-ex Hickerson is charged with felony assault.
2021
Hickerson pleads no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse/cohabitant/girlfriend/child's parent and is sentenced to 45 days in jail and four years probation.
2023
Panettiere returns to acting, reprising her role as Kirby Reed in Scream VI.
In the same year, her brother Jansen dies aged 28 from an enlarged heart.
May 2026
Panettiere releases her memoir in which she makes disturbing allegations against film stars and industry execs from when she was a teenager.
She also opens up on her experience of postpartum depression and comes out as bisexual.
August 2026
Panettiere tragically dies. Police say: “The preliminary investigation has not indicated any signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances.”
Topics: Hayden Panettiere, Entertainment, Hollywood, Film and TV
Niamh Shackleton