In the months before her sudden death, Hayden Panettiere was looking toward something intensely personal: seeing her daughter again.
The 36-year-old Nashville and Heroes actress had spoken about taking a vacation and traveling to Ukraine to visit her 11-year-old daughter, Kaya, according to her longtime hairstylist and friend Erick Orellana. Panettiere died on Aug. 16 in Greenville, South Carolina. Her cause and manner of death remain under investigation.
The revelation about the planned trip has taken on painful significance in the days since her death.
Orellana told Page Six that when he last saw Panettiere several months earlier, she was already talking about seeing Kaya.
“I last saw her a few months ago,” he said. “She was talking about how she wanted to take a vacation, and that she wanted to go and see her daughter.”
For Orellana, there was little question about the importance Kaya held in Panettiere’s life.
“Her daughter was always her absolute priority,” he said. “She loved her so much. Her daughter was the absolute light of her life. She lit up when she spoke about her.”
Panettiere and her former fiancé, retired heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko, welcomed Kaya in 2014. Klitschko has been Kaya’s primary caregiver since 2018, when Panettiere relinquished custody while struggling with postpartum depression and substance abuse.
Distance Could Not Erase Panettiere’s Bond With Kaya
Panettiere spoke candidly over the years about one of the most painful chapters of her life: living apart from her only child.
The arrangement became the focus of considerable public scrutiny, with Panettiere pushing back against the perception that she had simply walked away from motherhood.
She described signing over custody as devastating. “It was very upsetting signing those papers to give him full custody,” Panettiere said. “It was like the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever, ever had to do in my life.”
She was equally forceful when addressing suggestions that the separation meant she had abandoned Kaya.
“I mean, the idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be okay with it is heartbreaking,” she said. “Couldn’t be farther from the truth.”
In interviews, Panettiere presented the decision differently: as an agonizing acknowledgment that she first needed to become healthy enough to be the mother she wanted to be.
“The best thing for my daughter was to make sure she was okay, take care of myself and make sure I could be a good mom to her,” she said. “And sometimes that means letting go.”
Her comments were consistent with more recent interviews in which she again rejected the suggestion that distance had broken the relationship. In May, Panettiere spoke publicly about missing Kaya and hoping that their relationship would continue to deepen as her daughter grew older.
Panettiere Worked to Maintain a Relationship Across Thousands of Miles
Spatial distance became an unavoidable part of their relationship. Panettiere said she traveled to see Kaya whenever possible and relied heavily on FaceTime to remain involved in her daughter’s life.
“I have an incredible relationship with her,” she said. “I go travel as much as I can. I see her. I do spend a lot of time on FaceTime with her, but we talk about really deep things.”
What mattered to Panettiere, she said, was the quality of the relationship they had kept despite circumstances that neither mother nor daughter could easily change.
“We have a really intense, incredible bond,” she said, “and I’m very grateful for that.” Earlier this year, Panettiere again spoke about how much she missed having Kaya physically near her.
“I will always want her here. I always miss her,” she told podcaster Jay Shetty in May. “I always want to have my arms wrapped around her, but that’s just not the way life is right at this moment.”
Still, she remained hopeful. Panettiere said she believed a time would come when mother and daughter could build an even closer relationship.
“I have faith that she is going to come to me,” she said, “and that we’re going to have an incredible relationship and bond and friendship that a lot of parents don’t get to have with their kids.”
A Reunion That Will Now Never Take Place
That optimism makes Orellana’s account of Panettiere’s planned visit particularly poignant.
There is no indication that the actress had finalized the trip or purchased a ticket. What is known is that she was talking about traveling to see Kaya and that, according to a friend who knew her closely, the prospect mattered deeply to her.
It was one more attempt to close the distance which had defined so much of their relationship.
Panettiere had repeatedly emphasized that whatever outsiders believed about the custody arrangement, she wanted her daughter to understand one thing clearly: that she was loved.
“I know that she knows that she has two parents that would do anything in the world to make sure that she is happy and healthy, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually,” Panettiere said.
She also rejected the notion that Kaya felt deserted by her. “She in no way feels abandoned,” Panettiere said, “and that’s something that I’ve made sure to stay on top of and be very aware of.”
Following Panettiere’s death, Klitschko openly addressed the loss and the difficult task now facing their family.
“Our family is going through a time of deep shock and grief,” he wrote. He described Panettiere as an important part of his life and, above all, “the mother of our daughter, Kaya.”
His message then turned directly to their child. “To our daughter Kaya, I will always speak of her mother with respect and make sure she remembers the person she was,” Klitschko wrote.
For years, Panettiere had spoken about wanting Kaya to comprehend the depth of her love in spite of the distance between them.
She once described her daughter simply: “She’s a happy kid open to a huge world. And she has more love than anybody I’ve ever met.”
Then came a line filled with the self-deprecating vulnerability that often surfaced when Panettiere discussed motherhood: “She’s just an amazing child. She’s smart and she’s funny and for whatever reason, she still loves me.”
Panettiere had hoped to see her daughter again. She never made that journey.
But in her interviews, memoir and the recollections of those closest to her, she spent years making sure there could be little doubt about what Kaya meant to her.
