<span class="fr-deletable" contenteditable="false" data-type="mention/taxonomy"><a contenteditable="true" data-id="14278" data-name="Hayden Panettiere" data-slug="14278" href="taxonomies/14278">Hayden Panettiere</a></span>'s estranged mother is opening up about the sudden, untimely deaths of her only two children.
<strong id="e7eIVAiG9A">Lesley Vogel </strong>shared the late <em id="emJYkdreVO">Heroes</em> actress as well as her younger brother <strong id="enBJBEzFee"><span class="fr-deletable" contenteditable="false" data-type="mention/article"><a class="--edited" contenteditable="true" data-id="719043" data-name="Jansen Panettiere" data-slug="719043" href="articles/719043">Jansen Panettiere</a></span></strong> — who died at 28 in 2023 from an enlarged heart (cardiomegaly) coupled with aortic valve complications — with <strong id="e5mspO1RK4"><span class="fr-deletable" contenteditable="false" data-type="mention/article"><a class="--edited" contenteditable="true" data-id="918637" data-name="Skip Panettiere" data-slug="918637" href="articles/918637">Skip Panettiere</a></span></strong>, to whom she was married from 1987 to 2016.
The mom-of-two recently <span class="fr-deletable" contenteditable="false" data-type="mention/article"><a class="--edited" contenteditable="true" data-id="919072" data-name="faced backlash for her tribute to her daughter" data-slug="919072" href="articles/919072">faced backlash for her tribute to her daughter</a></span>, who <span class="fr-deletable" contenteditable="false" data-type="mention/article"><a class="--edited" contenteditable="true" data-id="918306" data-name="died at 36 on August 16" data-slug="918306" href="articles/918306">died at 36 on August 16</a></span>, and from whom she had been estranged since she was 19.
Speaking on the Monday, August 24 installment of Good Morning America with <strong id="elsvxCtJ77">Rhiannon Ally</strong>, Lesley, 70, said: "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," maintaining: "That's my domain."
"It's a process," she added of her grief, noting: "And I think it will probably hit me later on."
Hayden died after she was found unresponsive and in cardiac arrest at a residence in Greenville, South Carolina. First responders attempted to resuscitate her, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.
"I was numb. I was just numb," Lesley said of the moment she learned of Hayden's death. "I just couldn't feel anything. I still [am] not grasping this is real."
"It doesn't feel real. My mind tells me it's not at times. It's going to be a process," she added, choking up.
Asked how she will cope with having lost both of her children, she said: "I think you just have to find that inner strength," adding: "I have been knocked down throughout my life and I'm not complaining, because I have the strength to get back up. … It's how we get back up that defines who we are."
Reflecting on Hayden's difficult life, marred with mental health and addiction struggles, Lesley claimed Hayden had "a very happy life" until she was cast as Claire Bennett on the hit Heroes at 16. "So here she was, the star of a major TV series. But I would say at about 17, I started seeing her going downhill."
Lesley, who served as Hayden's manager up until around their estrangement, continued: "As she got older, it wasn't my voice anymore. I wasn't in charge of her choices. I tried to give her the best advice I could. But again, you know, any young person, teen, they want to be liberated. And I get that. I did get that."
"I want Hayden to be remembered for the talented, beautiful, outgoing, intelligent woman she really was," she further shared. "But I also want people to understand that it is my belief that she was suffering. Now, that doesn't make sense. Because when you look at a beautiful girl who's got an incredible career, even though it had its ups and downs, but you look at that big picture and you go, 'Why would you be suffering?' People don't understand that you can have on the exterior all of this. But that doesn't mean that what's going on in here matches."
