Hayden Panettiere director says her team asked him to join intervention for her as he slams Brian Hickerson

A co-director of one of Hayden Panettiere's final movies claimed her team asked him to join an intervention for her that ultimately failed to materialize.

The Heroes actress was found dead aged 36 of a suspected overdose on Sunday at an Airbnb in Greenville, South Carolina, where she had traveled with her on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson, a native of the state.

Hickerson, who conducted a turbulent romance with Panettiere and once went to jail for abusing her, was on the scene along with his brother Zachary when she was pronounced dead, according to a newly released police report. Her autopsy found 'no signs of trauma' that 'would have contributed to the death.'

Now Griff Furst, who helmed Panettiere's 2025 film A Breed Apart with his brother Nathan, has said Panettiere was 'fighting to stay sober' while he worked with her.

In videos posted to Instagram, he claimed that when he went to meet with her and Hickerson together, the 'energy in her room was pretty dark.'

While recounting Hickerson's visit to the set, Furst, 44, argued that Panettiere 'deserved better company' than he personally 'observed.'

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Hickerson and Furst, as well as Panettiere's team, for comment. 

Panettiere died at the end of a long struggle with alcohol and opiates, spending eight months in rehab in 2020 after contracting jaundice and being informed by her doctor that 'if I didn't stop drinking, I'd be dead within five years,' as she wrote in her memoir.

In 2018, in order to devote herself to her recovery from her personal demons, Panettiere voluntarily gave up custody of her now 11-year-old daughter Kaya.

Kaya was handed over to the care of her father, Ukrainian boxing star Wladimir Klitschko, with whom Panettiere retained an amicable co-parenting bond. 

In an Instagram video posted Wednesday, Furst said he 'was rooting for Hayden' to triumph over her addictions, but that as a 'producer or director' on the set of their film, 'no matter how certain you are that an actor or a crew member is in a bad situation, you don't have the proof or the benefit of the time to verify it.'

He argued that he was left with the measures of being able to 'adjust the schedule, you can collect internal reporting and you can assign a handler to make sure that the individual is being taken care of as best as they can.' 

Furst then alleged that he remained in contact with 'her team' after filming concluded 'and what eventually got determined was that she might need an intervention, and I was asked to participate and I said yes.'

However 'that intervention did not happen, at least not that I'm aware of,' said Furst. 'And I wasn't leading the charge on that. It wouldn't have been appropriate for me.'

He recalled that Panettiere 'brought' Hickerson to the set of A Breed Apart, adding that 'all I know about that is what we observed and wrote down at the time that it happened with her boyfriend Brian Hickerson.' 

Furst added: 'I wasn't in South Carolina. I don't know what happened, but I will say is my opinion and it's only about what I saw on my own set - somebody fighting to stay sober who deserved better company around them than what I observed.'

On Monday, the day after Panettiere's death, Furst had posted an Instagram video offering a more detailed account of Hickerson's appearance on the set.

The actor and filmmaker explained that he had met Panettiere 'about 10 years' before they made A Breed Apart 'and I knew that she was insanely talented, so when she signed on to do this picture that we were shooting, I was psyched.'

He remembered hearing from 'the movie's security team who picked her up from the airport that something was off. And 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 and Hayden was incredibly sweet and gracious and excited to work, but she was not okay.'

Furst declined to 'get into the details of why that was, but having worked on over 100 movies and seen just about everything, it was pretty clear that she wasn't okay, and the energy in her room was pretty dark.'  

Panettiere first took up with Hickerson in 2018, when she was in the depths of her struggles with drink and opioids and had recently split from Klitschko. 

Over the course of their turbulent relationship, Hickerson faced multiple domestic violence charges, and in 2021 he served 13 days in prison for injuring her.

After she was declared dead on Sunday, Hickerson is said to have handed the authorities a 'bag of medication' she had been taking, per the police report.

Although his brother was 'very emotional' during attempts to revive Panettiere, Hickerson is claimed to have remained impassive until she was declared dead, according to the police report.

The Daily Mail has exclusively revealed that Panettiere was also the subject of romance rumors with Zach, a pastor, during a brief period in 2019.

Zach and Panettiere were glimpsed walking hand in hand in New York that September, at which point a witness described them as resembling a 'real couple.'

Panettiere's memoir offered a blistering account of her history with Brian Hickerson and also detailed her fraught equation with her mother Lesley Vogel, who used to be her manager as a child star but from whom she ultimately became estranged.

Vogel characterized their rift as a 'recent occurrence' dating back to 'around mid-September' of last year, while speaking to the Daily Mail this May.

'We each are entitled to choose our path in life,' said Panettiere's mother at the time, adding: 'After 20 years of trauma, chaos, addictions [and] accusations, I felt I had no other option but to choose no contact.'

Furst's disclosures came as Justin Chatwin, her co-star on her final movie Sleepwalker, reflected on how 'lonely' she seemed to him during filming last year.

'We hit it off great and it was an awesome shoot, but it was about domestic abuse and it was subject matter that may have hit close to home, because she did mention it,' Chatwin told People. 'She opened up to me about a lot of things.'

He observed: 'I could tell she was struggling, and I was like: "I don't think it's this movie." There's a handful of women that I've worked with that I really liked, and I really loved working with her, but I also know that she was really lonely.' 

The Daily Mail contacted Chatwin's representatives for further comment. 

Chatwin had met her during the height of her fame on Heroes, which she starred on from 2006 to 2010, but noticed a marked difference in her state of mind by the time they worked with one another on Sleepwalker.

'Hayden seemed different when I met her this time than when I met her in the early years. I've been sober for 15 years, so I know this world of addiction, and Hollywood - it takes, and it takes from youth,' he said.

'“I’m sure that everyone else is going to say: "Oh, she’s amazing. She’s such a sweet person on set," because she was,' Chatwin noted.

'But we’re trained to be actors, so we’re acting on set, you know? And she is sweet. She had a beautiful heart. But we’re trained to be on, and I really liked spending time with her because she took that off, and she was authentic with me about her life and she opened up about her struggles with addiction,' he revealed.

'And who knows where it comes from? Does it come from Hollywood? Does it come from home? And a lot of times, it’s both.'