Lesley Vogel, Hayden Panettiere’s estranged mother, has hit out at the “haters” and backlash she has received in her first sit down interview since her daughter’s tragic death.
“I would say to the haters out there: ‘You don’t have a right to tell me how I mourn the loss of my second child. That’s my domain’,” Vogel, 70, told Good Morning America.
Actress Hayden Panettiere’s estranged mother Lesley Vogel has hit back at the ‘haters’ in her first TV interview since her sudden death. Getty
The former soap actress sat down with journalist Rhiannon Ally to speak about Panettiere’s sudden death at age 36 earlier this month.
Vogel said she was still processing her daughter’s death and “it will probably hit me later on”.
In an emotional moment, she said she went “numb” and “couldn’t feel anything” when she got the call about the Heroes actress’ death.
“I still am not grasping that this is real. It doesn’t feel real; my mind tells me it’s not at times. You know, it’s going to be a process,” she said, before she took a break to cry off camera.
Vogel also slammed her late daughter’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, and claimed he was the reason they were estranged at the time of her death.
Hickerson and Panettiere were first linked in 2018, and their relationship was tumultuous for years.
Vogel believes that Panettiere got close to Hickerson in that period, after she gave her ex-fiance Wladimir Klitschko full custody of their daughter, who was four at the time.
Vogel confirmed that she was not speaking to her daughter during the final months of her life and recalled that over a year ago the Nashville star allegedly wanted to leave him for good.
“I still am not grasping that this is real. It doesn’t feel real; my mind tells me it’s not at times. You know, it’s going to be a process.” Good Morning America
“She knew that Brian was toxic,” Vogel said.
“She knew she had to get him out of her life.”
But Vogel claimed that Panettiere pulled away from her after six weeks, so she just went back to her home in Florida.
Vogel then got a call from the actress to let her know she was back with Hickerson.
“When I got the phone call from her saying I’m going to be with the person I love… I just lost it,” Vogel shared.
“I could not believe she had gone that far back, that he had been successful in reeling her back in with all the things he had done to her.”
Vogel delivered an ultimatum to her daughter over her relationship with Hickerson a year before her death. Getty
Vogel gave her daughter an ultimatum and told her that she couldn’t be in her life if Hickerson was also in it.
She said she had expected the estrangement that followed to be a “pocket of time”.
But Vogel never thought this would happen to her daughter.
Despite the backlash Vogel has received online in the days since her daughter’s death, she wants her to be remembered as, “the talented, you know, beautiful, outgoing, intelligent woman she really was.”
Panettiere died on August 16, her on-and-off-again boyfriend Hickerson was there with her at the time of her death. Getty
Panettiere died on Sunday August 16, of an apparent overdose.
Authorities have opened a “death investigation” to determine what really happened in the moments before the actress died at a home in South Carolina.
Multiple US news outlets including TMZ are reporting that law enforcement sources began the investigation because “Hayden’s death was unexpected”.
Police will reportedly run their investigation alongside the coroner to determine the true cause and manner of the actress’ death.
Detectives are also trying to determine if there “could be criminal conduct” behind her death.
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