This story originally appeared on Them.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, a federal agency, has joined the investigation into the August 16 death of actress Hayden Panettiere, a source familiar with the matter told The New York Times on Wednesday.
As previously reported, Panettiere died at 36 years old in a Greenville, South Carolina apartment where she had been staying temporarily on Sunday. Audio of the 911 call included paramedics discussing an overdose and a cardiac arrest. EMTs attempted “advanced cardiac life support” to revive Panettiere, but were unable to resuscitate her.
Though the Greenville Police Department has previously said there were no signs of foul play in Panettiere’s death, the DEA, which enforces U.S. drug laws, will join the investigation. The agency has previously been a part of investigations into celebrity deaths, such as the overdose death of Friends actor Matthew Perry, and resulted in five convictions, as TMZ noted. The celebrity news website is also reporting that Narcan, a medication used to reverse overdoses, was found at the site of her death.
The DEA did not respond to the New York Times’ request for further information, and only told TMZ, “The DEA does not confirm or comment on active investigations.”
What else do we know about the investigation?
Panettiere’s boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, was with the actress when she died according to a police report released earlier this week, as the Times reported. Panettiere and Hickerson had been dating intermittently since 2018, per People. When officers arrived on the scene, Hickerson reportedly showed officials a bag of medications Panettiere had been taking.
As of this writing, the Greenville Police Department and the coroner’s office are conducting parallel investigations into Panettiere’s death, per TMZ.
What else do we know about Panettiere’s relationship with Brian Hickerson?
A neighbor of Panettiere’s in West Hollywood told Inside Edition that she had called 911 at least six times to report disturbances at the Heroes actress’s apartment.
“She was always such a bright light when she was by herself,” Mia Terrazzas said. “When she was with Brian, she was so subdued.” Terrazzas said she had “absolutely” seen signs of domestic violence.
“I saw her leaving on a gurney. Brian was right next to her, and I asked her if she was OK, and it looked to me that she had suffered some type of trauma that looked to be battering,” she alleged. “It was clear she was terrified.”
The neighborhood homeowners association had also posted flyers warning residents to call 911 if they saw Hickerson around the neighborhood.
“This predator was in our community. He never stopped living at her place,” Terrazzas said. “There were times he ripped apart her bathroom, where he just took a sledgehammer at five in the morning.”
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Panettiere wrote about Hickerson’s behavior in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, which was released earlier this year and which included her talking about her bisexuality publicly for the first time. In 2021, Hickerson was sentenced to 45 days in jail after pleading no contest to injuring Panettiere.
Griff Furst, a filmmaker who worked with Panettiere on the film A Breed Apart, also commented on Panettiere and Hickerson’s relationship in an Instagram post on Tuesday.
He said that “something was off” when Hickerson would visit Panettiere on set.
“So I’m on set, and I get word from the movie’s security team who picked her up from the airport that something was off,” Furst said. “I didn’t think much about it, and so I left set and I walked over to greet her and her boyfriend Brian. He opened the door. Hayden was incredibly sweet and gracious and excited to work, but she was not OK.” He added that, when Hickerson was present, “the energy in her room was pretty dark.”
In the same video, Furst also claimed that he was scheduled to take part in an intervention with the actress planned by her team.
“I was asked to participate, and I said yes,” Furst said. “That intervention did not happen, at least not that I am aware of. I wasn’t leading the charge on it. It wouldn’t have been appropriate for me.”
What happened in the months before Panettiere’s death?
Prior to her untimely death, Panettiere had been planning a return to the public eye. She released her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning in 2026. Throughout the book, she discussed her experiences with postpartum depression, addiction, recovery, trauma, domestic abuse and loss. In the press cycle for This Is Me, she also came out as bisexual, telling Us Weekly that she had previously kept it a secret for fear it might seem like she was joining a “fad.”
“That’s something about me I was never able to share with the world, because it was just never the right time,” she said. “It was either I was too young, and I was being forced to be perfect at all times. I was not encouraged to just be myself. Then came the period where it felt like people coming out, especially women, saying that they were bisexual or liked girls, was a fad.”
Following the release of her memoir, some fans also called for a boycott of the skincare brand Neutrogena for allegedly trying to drop her after speaking about her experiences with postpartum depression in 2015, per USA Today. Neutrogena faced renewed calls for boycotts following Panettiere’s death. According to USA Today, Neutrogena has not responded to requests for comments from TMZ, Us Weekly and Page Six.
What do we know about her official cause of death?
While audio of the call did include phrases such as “overdose” and “cardiac arrest,” no cause of death has yet been revealed. However, per THR, the coroner’s office has said there were no obvious signs of trauma on Panettiere.
The coroner has said that a toxicology report on Panettiere is still forthcoming, per TMZ.
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