Hayden Panettiere needed ‘back-up’ to keep ex-boyfriend away from book tour

This spring, Hayden Panettiere began a book tour at a Barnes & Noble in New York City, greeting fans with a bright smile before steeling herself for a discussion about a memoir that chronicles the trials of her life, including struggles with drug and alcohol addiction and an abusive ex-boyfriend.

Before the event in May, the bookstore was given a specific instruction, according to two people with direct knowledge of the tour: Do not let in a man named Brian Hickerson.

Hickerson was the former boyfriend Panettiere had discussed at length in her memoir, which recounted his violence against her that had resulted in three arrests and a stint in jail.

They eventually resumed a tumultuous on-and-off relationship. But by the time of the book tour, she was accompanied by private security with clear instructions to keep him away, according to the two people.

“I needed an incredible amount of support and backup in order to make sure that there was no way for him to find his way back in,” Panettiere said on a podcast in May.

Three months later, Hickerson was present when she was pronounced dead in an apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina. Police have said there were no signs of foul play , and neither Hickerson nor his brother Zach, who are listed in a police report as having called 911, have been accused of being involved in her death.

The county coroner’s office said Panettiere, 36, went into cardiac arrest, which is being investigated as an apparent drug overdose.

As authorities search for clarity, Hickerson will be a key source of information as someone familiar with the actor’s final hours. When the police arrived, he showed an officer a bag of her medications, according to the redacted police report.

In a statement Thursday, lawyers for Hickerson said: “Hayden’s death remains under investigation, and it is important to allow that investigation to proceed. As has been publicly reported, police confirmed there were no signs of foul play.”

The lawyers declined to comment on the accounts of Hickerson’s relationship with Panettiere included in this article.

Hickerson was a persistent source of conflict in the final year of a life weighed down by grief, addiction, agoraphobia and physical pain that sometimes made it difficult for Panettiere to walk. Some family and friends were eager for Panettiere to separate from Hickerson for good. At times, she would wall herself off from them when she and Hickerson were together.

Lesley Vogel, Panettiere’s mother, said that about a year ago, she spent time in Los Angeles to help her daughter during a low point.

“She was in pain,” Vogel said. “She was afraid. She couldn’t physically function properly.”

Vogel, who had a fraught and sometimes distant relationship with Panettiere, said she took her daughter to doctors and tried massage and acupuncture in hopes of relieving a feeling of “pins and needles” in her lower extremities that made it difficult to walk. The exact cause was unclear, but Panettiere wondered if the condition had something to do with injuries she incurred on film sets when she was young.