Hayden Panettiere opened up about a loss that continued to weigh heavily on her in the months before her tragic death.
During an appearance on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, the actress spoke candidly about the heartbreak of losing her younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, three years earlier and how the grief had changed with time. While the pain had evolved, Panettiere made it clear that his absence was something she didn’t expect to ever fully overcome.
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In a deeply personal conversation, she reflected on the brother she considered her “best, best friend” and the moments when she still found herself wanting to call him.
“The heartbreak has, has changed. But losing him and realizing how much of life I was gonna have to go through alone and without him, where I, when I always saw him as being there,” Panettiere told Shetty. She went on to say that she thought about the future and when her parents would eventually die—and having to go through that without her brother by her side was devastating.
“There’s so many times I want to call him,” she continued, adding, “he was my best, best friend and, like, when he first died, I just remember screaming, ‘I don’t want to live in a world where he doesn’t exist.’ So, I’ve unfortunately had to. But he seemed so alive in my head still.”
Jansen died in 2023. He was found unresponsive in his home in Nyack, New York, after he didn’t show up to a scheduled meeting. It was later confirmed that the 28-year-old died from cardiomegaly (an enlarged heart) coupled with aortic valve complications, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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