Hayden Panettiere Recalls Her Body Physically Changing After Brother's Death

Hayden Panettiere opened up about how her brother Jansen Panettiere‘s death caused her body to change.

“I just ballooned out,” Hayden, 35, told People on Wednesday, September 18, about rapid weight gain she experienced from the “stress and cortisol” going through her body. “I didn’t feel confident to put on clothes and get out of the house, but I also knew that I needed to get out and keep moving or I’d never stop looking and feeling this way.”

Hayden referred to the experience as “a destructive hamster wheel” that shifted when she was introduced to her personal trainer Marnie Alton.

“These long, beautiful walks where we could vent and it would be this therapy session. Marnie empowered me,” she recalled. “My body just started reacting, not just from the working out. It allowed me to release the stress, the high expectations I’d always put on myself.”

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As a result, Hayden was able to face her struggles with agoraphobia too, adding, “There’s nothing like looking in the mirror and feeling like you look good enough to walk out the door.”

News broke in February 2023 that Jansen died at age 28 of aortic valve complications from an enlarged heart. Jansen got his start as an actor with roles in Even Stevens and The Walking Dead before he became a traffic artist. Jansen and Hayden even costarred in the Disney Channel Original Movie Tiger Cruise and Racing Stripes when they were younger.

Hayden Panettiere and Jansen Panettiere at the 2019 screening of ‘Sharkwater Extinction’

“He is a very balanced child. He has a heart of gold and would never wish bad on anyone. Sometimes I need to take a lesson from him. He keeps his cool really well,” Hayden told TV Guide in 2007. “Watching him, because he is such a kid, you realize sometimes how down you are and for absolutely no reason. I guess it is just that it is very difficult for kids in this business.”

Jansen, for his part, said he learned a lot from his sister. “She gets me a little more noticed. She gives me a kick-start. With The Last Day of Summer, they will notice me more because she is my sister,” he added at the time. “It is almost like you are looking in a book, and the bookmark is my sister and she is basically showing me, she is able to push me out there. She helps me tremendously.”

After her brother’s passing, Hayden weathered the grief out of the public eye. “He was my only sibling, and it was my job to protect him,” she told People. “When I lost him, I felt like I lost half of my soul.”

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Hayden noted that she will never be completely healed from the trauma of Jansen’s death but she is taking the necessary steps to move forward.

“When something that massive has happened to you, you really learn to pick your fights and just not let the little things upset you,” she shared. “Because once something so horrific, so deep, so catastrophic happens in your life, there’s not much that can really rock you.”

Hayden continued: “I will always be heartbroken about it. I will never be able to get over it. No matter how many years go by, I will never get over his loss.”