Though she had a decidedly different slant on the scenario.
“Getting an abusive person out of your life is like trying to rip a weed out that is so entangled into your life,” she explained to Us Weekly this past May, “and every time you pull it out another weed pops back up and you’re like, I thought I killed this. They always manage to find a way to slither back in, even if you’re an incredibly strong-willed person.”
She’d previously believed his Valentine’s Day 2020 arrest in Wyoming was the point of no return and it certainly “helped push me in the right direction,” she told the outlet, “but it still took me a long time. I still struggled to fully put a kibosh to it for a while.”
In fact, when speaking to The New York Times in 2023 as her comeback vehicle Scream VI hit theaters, Panettiere acknowledged “there are feelings there, yes.” As for what she might do about those emotions, it was “contingent on him continuing on this road of recovery.” And E! News has learned that Panettiere traveled with Hickerson from L.A. to South Carolina the day before her death.