Hayden Panettiere details ongoing relationship with ex Brian Hickerson after domestic violence arrest

Hayden Panettiere has opened up about her current relationship status with ex-boyfriend Brian Hickerson, who was arrested and charged in 2021 with felony assault.

In a new interview with The New York Times, the Scream VI star admitted that “there are feelings” between herself and her on and off boyfriend of four years, but was hesitant to define her relationship with Hickerson out of fear of how she might be perceived.

As Panettiere spoke with New York Times journalist Ilana Kaplan at her condo in Los Angeles, Hickerson was reportedly “walking around, vacuuming and shooting a basketball through the hoop in her living area.” Kaplan also noted that Panettiere called Hickerson “babe” several times throughout the interview.

In July 2020, Brian Hickerson was arrested on multiple felony charges, including two charges of assault stemming from two allegedly abusive incidents from May 2019 to January 2020, according to People. Hickerson pleaded no contest to two felony counts in 2021 and was sentenced to 45 days in jail.

The 33-year-old actor, who’s been open about her battle with opioid addiction, explained that the two rekindled their friendship once they both became sober. While Panettiere said she doesn’t condone what Hickerson did, she noted that their relationship was “contingent on him continuing on this road of recovery”.

“He knows he deserved what happened to him,” she said. “I did not do any of this lightly.”

Hayden Panettiere and Brian Hickerson have been dating on and off since 2018. The Bring It On: All or Nothing star was previously in a relationship with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2009, before they briefly separated in 2011. The former couple were engaged two years later and welcomed daughter Kaya in December 2014.

The Nashville actor relinquished custody of her now nine-year-old daughter in 2018. The decision for Kaya to live with Klitschko in Ukraine was made amid Panettiere’s struggle with addiction to alcohol and pills.

Speaking to the New York Times, Panettiere revealed that she turned to alcohol and opioids to “self-medicate”, drinking to get through the day and swapping in opioids to avoid consuming alcohol.

In 2015, she left Nashville during its fourth season and entered a treatment centre for depression. Panettiere re-entered a treatment centre in 2021, where she spent eight months focusing on her sobriety. Although the actor has now been sober for almost two years, she admitted that she deleted all pictures from her phone taken during her addiction except for one.

“To remind myself what I looked like,” she said. “The fact that I thought I looked OK at that time is the scariest part to me.”