Jack Coleman, who played Hayden Panettiere’s onscreen dad on Heroes, is expressing his grief over her death at the age of 36.
“I’m heartbroken. I couldn’t begin to put my thoughts into words until now, and they will be inadequate,” Coleman, 68, wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, August 19.
He continued, “I’ve loved Hayden since day one of the pilot of Heroes, 20 years ago, when she introduced herself by shouting ‘daddy’ and throwing her arms around me. From that day on, she called me daddio. She was Haydini, because she was a magician.”
“She was a prodigious talent. During an early scene, a tear rolled down her cheek on the same line, take after take,” Coleman recalled. “I marveled at her technique. ‘It’s not technique,’ she corrected me. ‘I’m not a trained seal. I feel it and the tears just happen to come at that moment.’ She was 16.”
Coleman also reflected on the intense media attention Panettiere received after Heroes became a success.
“By 17 she was #1 on IMDB Pro. She was routinely asked obnoxious questions, mostly some version of ‘when are you going to go off the rails?’ Today, we’d recognize those questions for the misogynistic provocations they were,” he wrote.
“She was hunted. Everywhere she went, there were photographers with 300-millimeter lenses — the kind that can make even the most innocent activity look sinister,” Coleman said. “Once, when she came to our house, paparazzi hid in the bushes behind our yard and drove onto neighbors’ lawns. They were predatory. No one, especially a teenager, should be targeted that way.”
Coleman said that he is filled with “sorrow and regret” but also “anger.” He wrote, “But that’s for another time. Right now I want to remember an extraordinary young woman who was blessed and cursed. She was vulnerable. She felt everything. It made her a remarkable actor and susceptible to the heartache and thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.”
“I love you, Hayden. I’ll miss you. I’m so sorry you suffered. I’ll remember how happy you were on set and on the European press tour; how you championed [Coleman’s daughter] Tess when she was being bullied; [and] your commitment to animal welfare and the courage to put yourself in harm’s way to protect them,” he wrote. “I only wish you had been given that same protection.”
“Goodnight, sweet girl. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,” the actor concluded.
Panettiere was found unresponsive inside an apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina, on Sunday, August 16. She was later pronounced dead at the scene.
An autopsy conducted by the Greenville County Coroner’s Office found no signs of trauma that could have contributed to her death.
“It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden. She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her — and to the millions who watched her onscreen,” the actress’ father, Skip Panettiere, said in a statement to Us on Sunday. “We ask for privacy as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss.”
