The late-night Aug. 16 notification that Hayden Panettiere died took my breath away. She was 36 years old.
Panettiere’s career coincided with my own coming of age. One of the first VHS tapes I owned was "A Bug’s Life." In 2005, I checked my local Blockbuster multiple times for copies of "Ice Princess," the Disney movie she starred in with the late Michelle Trachtenberg. "Bring It On: All or Nothing" was a movie my cheer friends and I watched. I watched "Heroes" on Netflix as a teenager – her storyline as Claire Bennet was the only one I cared about.
Almost immediately, my side of the internet was filled with stills and clips from Panettiere’s acting career, from a "Remember the Titans" clip, in which she discusses football plays with Denzel Washington’s
character instead of playing with dolls, to a montage of her and Trachtenberg in "Ice Princess."
I could immediately feel the outpouring of grief from women like me, who grew up with her. We saw ourselves in her from a young age. Now, we must reckon with the grief of a life lost too young, a life we were not a part of, even though she was part of ours.
Hayden Panettiere reminds Gen Z, millennials of our own mortality
Every so often, a celebrity’s death will feel like an exposed nerve, reminding us that the grief of loss and our own mortality are always closer than we think. Millennials and Gen Z are still getting used to that feeling.
Panettiere is not the first celebrity we have grown up with to die. I still remember getting the news in 2013 that "Glee" actor Cory Monteith had died, of a mixed drug toxicity. I was still in high school and having conversations with my friends about the strange feeling we were all experiencing.
Monteith was not someone we knew personally, but we felt we knew him. We could feel the sadness that surrounded the circumstances of his death, even though it was a feeling we could not yet name.
Over the years, we’ve started to learn how to cope with the deaths of famous people, perhaps because we have started to experience loss in our personal lives. We learn how to react to the news, but it doesn’t stop the existential dread that arises.
Despite being two of the youngest generations, millennials (born between 1981-96) and Generation Z (spanning 1997-2012) are not invincible. When a celebrity dies, we are reminded how short our own lives really are.
Panettiere's honesty about postpartum depression, addiction helped us understand ourselves
Panettiere meant so much to millennial and Gen Z women, in particular. She showed us how to be strong, but also how to be kind. She was someone we could look up to, someone who felt like she could exist in our world.
In the last years of her life, Panettiere was talking about serious topics that many young women can empathize with. In her 2026 memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” she discussed her experience with postpartum depression, addiction, abuse and trauma. I am so glad that she was able to share her truth with the world before her death, and that we were able to hear it.
I have written several times about my own experiences with sobriety, which I came to because of addiction and mental health. It's a big part of my own story. It is something that resonates with people my age, who are dealing with their own things. Panettiere’s is not simply a cautionary tale – it is also a story about the importance of speaking your truth, even when it's difficult to say out loud.
I am thinking of Panettiere’s family and friends, particularly her daughter, during this time. It is one thing to lose someone you’ve known through a screen; it is another thing entirely to lose someone whose laughter you’ve heard in real life. I hope that they know the joy she brought to girls like me across the country.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on Bluesky: @sarapequeno.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: I grew up watching Hayden Panettiere. Her death is a reckoning. | Opinion
