Several celebrities have responded to comments made by Hayden Panettiere’s mother, Lesley Vogel, following the death of her daughter.
Panettiere died August 16 after being found in cardiac arrest at a Greenville, South Carolina apartment. She was days shy of her 37th birthday.
The Heroes star openly spoke about her strained relationship with her mother, who was Panettiere’s manager when she rose to fame as a child star. The two were estranged at the time of Panettiere’s death, and the actor had told podcaster Jay Shetty in May that Vogel “didn’t care to have a relationship with me.”
Speaking to NBC News following Panettiere’s death, Vogel said: “I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments 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.
“I think it becomes very difficult to be true to yourself, and I think Hayden sadly lost her way, and I wish it were different,” Vogel continued. “I wish she had stayed true to herself because she had many incredible attributes.”
Vogel also took aim at Brian Hickerson, Panettiere’s on-off boyfriend, saying: “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.”
She concluded: “I just feel that she’s with her brother and they’re at peace.” Panettiere’s younger brother Jansen died unexpectedly in 2023 at the age of 28.
Several celebrities, including Gayle King and Holly Robinson Peete, have since addressed Vogel’s comments.
“You know, guys, you read this and all I can think is, ‘Thanks, Mom, for nothing,’” King said during Wednesday’s CBS Mornings broadcast.
King acknowledged that Panettiere spoke about her “complicated relationship with her mom,” noting that “you hear stuff like that and you realize it was still very much [a work] in progress.”
“It makes me so sad of the opportunity that you have after your daughter’s death that that’s what you choose to leave us with,” King said.
She’s not wrong. We know this young lady clearly had so many issues, but if you’re not gonna take accountability for the fact that you put her in the business that eventually messed her up then nothing you say has any integrity.
— Holly Robinson Peete 💃🏾♍️ (@hollyrpeete) August 19, 2026
She didn’t even say “ I will miss my daughter” or… https://t.co/W1q1L0vq4Y
King said earlier this week that Panettiere was “clearly still struggling” in their interview three months before her death.
King’s CBS Mornings co-anchor Vladimir Duthiers also weighed in, saying, “Hayden Panettiere spent years publicly acknowledging her own failures, her own struggles,” he told King. “She did it with you in that interview. She cannot respond now, and for her mother to use these days after Hayden’s death to just remind the world just how much trauma she caused, it’s unseemly.”
Peete, meanwhile, weighed in on X by sharing an article link to King’s comments on the same topic.
“She’s not wrong. We know this young lady clearly had so many issues, but if you’re not gonna take accountability for the fact that you put her in the business that eventually messed her up then nothing you say has any integrity,” the 21 Jump Street star wrote.
“She didn’t even say ‘I will miss my daughter’ or ‘I loved my daughter the best way I could.’ Has she even mentioned the word daughter? There were so many things she could have said to show us that she was a caring mother… And now both of her children are gone. It is all so tragic. rip Hayden.”
A representative for Vogel wasn’t immediately available for comment.
Vogel served as Panettiere’s manager from the time she was just an infant. Panettiere opened up about her relationship with her “complex” mother and said that receiving praise for her work “was also all wrapped up in pleasing” Vogel, who had some success as a soap star in the 1980s.
Panettiere wrote about her mother in her memoir earlier this year, revealing that if she “wasn’t honest about my relationship with her, I wouldn’t be being honest at all” as she is “a huge part of the person I am today.”
While working on Heroes, Panettiere cut professional ties with her mother. Just 19 at the time, she asked to meet her in her trailer, and begged her to just be her mother. “All I wanted was a dynamic that didn’t involve contracts, producers, boho tops, or drinking wine at industry parties,” she wrote in the memoir.
Vogel, Panettiere claimed, “picked up her purse, clenched her jaw, and looked straight at me. ‘You owe me,’ she answered. Then she turned around and walked out of my trailer ... I knew I’d done the right thing, but I sensed something in me had died.”
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