Hayden Panettiere Kept Her Reunion With Brian Hickerson Hidden From Friends Before Her Death
Shortly before her death, Hayden Panettiere reunited with her ex, Brian Hickerson. Panettiere and Hickerson had a tumultuous relationship, with her seeking out a restraining order against him and him admitting to domestic violence. A source said she did not tell her friends about bringing Hickerson back into her life.
Hayden Panettiere’s friends didn’t know she reunited with Brian Hickerson
In March 2026, Panettiere and Hickerson sparked reconciliation rumors when they were spotted together at LAX. In the days before her death on Aug. 16, she reportedly traveled to South Carolina with Hickerson. His family is from the state. Her friends say they were “in the dark” about the couple’s reunion.
“If Brian was back in her life, then it was something she was hiding because she wasn’t speaking about it with many of her friends,” a source told Page Six.
Panettiere spoke openly about the violence in her relationship with Hickerson. She also delved into it in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning. The source believes that this is likely the reason why she didn’t tell many of her friends about Hickerson.
“If you’ve gone through some dark times with people, and spoken about it, then there can be shame if you get back together with that same person,” the insider added. “So maybe that was why she hadn’t mentioned it to us.”
Brian Hickerson admitted to domestic violence during his relationship with Hayden Panettiere
Hickerson said that he felt uncomfortable reading about his relationship in Panettiere’s memoir. Still, he understood why she included it. He said that there was only one story he asked her to take out of the book, though it ultimately made the final version.
“There’s a story where I was drunk, right?” he told TMZ. “Hayden was standing across the room, and I had a phone in my hand, and I said, ‘Hayden, I’ll give you 10 seconds to run as fast as you can before I throw it at you.’”
Despite his discomfort, he encouraged people to read the chapter about him.
“Hayden’s book’s incredible,” he said. “I think it’s great. I think everyone should read it. I mean, the domestic violence stuff in my chapter, everybody should read it.”
She said it was difficult to revisit this period of her life in the book
Panettiere laid her life bare in her memoir. She admitted that revisiting her relationship with Hickerson in the book was particularly “brutal.”
“It’s a very embarrassing subject,” she told Us Weekly. “I’ve always seen myself as such a resilient and strong woman. The idea that I could allow something like this to happen to me blew my mind. It blew the minds of the people that knew me best.”
She said that before releasing the book, she avoided speaking about the relationship because she found it “humiliating.” Still, she believes that it was important for her to say something.
“I needed to believe that it happened for a reason,” she said. “For something so horrible to happen, the only thing that I could think of to make it all worth it, was [to] let people know that they’re not alone and help people. [I’m] making sure that the people that have gone through similar things, don’t feel like they’re alone, and don’t feel like nobody understands them and knows that there’s somebody out there who went through it. And even though it took her years to truly get herself out of the situation, it’s possible. You can do it.”
How to get help: In the U.S., call the RAINN National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 to connect with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.
