Actress Hayden Panettiere's boyfriend Brian Hickerson allegedly sent her intimidating texts after his 2020 arrest for domestic battery, messages now surfacing days after the 36-year-old was found dead in South Carolina.
A probable cause affidavit from Hickerson's 2020 criminal case contains screenshots of missed calls and text messages directed at Panettiere, sent despite a court order that barred him from contacting her. In one alleged text, Hickerson wrote: "Time to go to war I guess." In another, he appeared to threaten her reputation: "After Wyoming and LA disappears so do the videos." Authorities said the messages showed Hickerson was attempting to intimidate Panettiere into dropping the case against him.
The texts, documented in the affidavit and first reported by Page Six, paint a picture of sustained pressure on a woman who had already accused her boyfriend of punching her in the face. Panettiere, known for her roles in "Heroes," "Nashville," and "Remember the Titans," was found unresponsive in a chair in the living room of a luxury apartment building in Greenville, South Carolina, on Sunday. First responders attempted life-saving measures. She was pronounced dead at the scene. She was 36.
The affidavit lays out a series of alleged messages in which Hickerson pressured Panettiere to intervene on his behalf. In one, he wrote: "Say something Hayd, so I don't get defensive and start firing off emails to people to get ready." In another: "It is very simple, it is a very simple fix, between me and you, you gotta make one phone call."
Other texts carried a more explicit edge. Hickerson allegedly told Panettiere: "Even if i sit in a jail cell for ten years. All of the stuff that is vaulted overseas with my people will come out the second I step foot into prison. And all that does is hurt your name while simultaneously clearing my name. And at that point who actually cares?"
Still another message read: "I thought his legal stuff would magically disappear... we gotta figure something out, buddy." And one more: "I don't want to go to court, for you. I will be f***ing fine in court, trust me, it's for you."
Every one of those messages, if the affidavit is accurate, was sent in violation of a court no-contact order. That order existed because Hickerson had been arrested on February 14, 2020, in Wyoming for allegedly delivering a closed-fist blow to Panettiere while the two were staying at an Airbnb. Officers who responded noted he appeared intoxicated and had been locked out of the building.
Hickerson's legal troubles did not end in Wyoming. He was arrested again in Los Angeles in July 2020. An eight-count criminal indictment followed in April 2021, stemming from a string of alleged incidents between May 2019 and January 2020. He pleaded no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend.
The sentence he received tells its own story about how the system handled his case. A Wyoming court gave him a year behind bars, then suspended the sentence and replaced it with one year of probation. In the Los Angeles case, he was sentenced to 45 days in county jail, four years of formal probation, 52 mandatory domestic violence classes, and a five-year restraining order. He served 33 days in LA Men's Central Jail, with credit for 12 days already served.
His first Los Angeles arrest, in May 2019, roughly a year after he and Panettiere began dating, had been dismissed entirely by September 2019.
Hickerson tried twice to get his record cleaned up. He filed a motion to expunge and downgrade his felony charges to misdemeanors. A court denied that request in July 2025. He tried again, pointing out that he had met the conditions of his probation. On August 13, 2026, three days before Panettiere's death, the court denied him a second time. Documents obtained by Page Six confirmed both denials.
In cases where text messages serve as key evidence in criminal proceedings, courts have increasingly relied on digital records to establish patterns of coercion and intimidation. The Hickerson affidavit follows that pattern exactly, screenshots preserved in a law enforcement filing, used to support charges that a defendant was trying to derail the case against him.
Panettiere was found unresponsive by Zach Hickerson, Brian's brother, who entered the residence and discovered her sitting in a chair in the living room. Brian Hickerson was sleeping in another room at the time, according to sources close to the matter cited by TMZ. First responders arrived quickly and attempted life-saving measures, but Panettiere was pronounced dead at the scene.
Audio from the 911 call referred to an apparent "overdose." Narcan, a medication used to reverse opioid overdoses, was found at the scene. No official cause of death has been confirmed by a medical examiner or coroner based on available reporting.
Panettiere had reportedly reconnected with Hickerson approximately two weeks before her death. An insider who spoke exclusively to Page Six said the reunion was not widely known among her circle.
"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. 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. So maybe that was why she hadn't mentioned it to us."
The Golden Globe nominee had written about her relationship with Hickerson in her memoir, This is Me: A Reckoning. The fact that she returned to him, quietly, without telling people close to her, speaks to a dynamic that domestic violence advocates have long described: victims who go back, not because the danger has passed, but because the pull of the relationship overrides the warning signs.
Lesley Vogel, Panettiere's estranged mother, did not hold back in a statement she gave to NBC News. She named Hickerson outright and made clear the family had been trying to separate him from her daughter for years.
"This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death. And that was Brian Hickerson."
Vogel also addressed the broader pressures her daughter faced as a former child star, describing Panettiere as "amazingly talented" while acknowledging the industry's toll.
"And I think young people who grow up in the entertainment industry, it is a struggle, and it's a very challenging industry, and it's not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path."
Tragic outcomes in cases involving domestic violence and substance abuse are not confined to Hollywood. Across the country, violent crimes rooted in personal relationships continue to claim lives, often after warning signs went unheeded or consequences proved too light to change behavior.
Page Six reported that it reached out to representatives for both Hickerson and Panettiere for comment. No responses were noted in the reporting. Hickerson's current legal status following Panettiere's death remains unclear.
A man who punched his girlfriend, violated a no-contact order to threaten her, served barely a month in jail, and twice tried to scrub his record clean was sleeping in the next room when she died. The system had every reason to keep him away from her. It didn't.
