He passed away on February 19, 2023, when he was 28 years old. He painted and acted, and his sister called him her best friend. He was smart, funny, and had a big personality. The people who loved him say that he could fill a room with his presence. He died quickly. His family was very sad. It was after that that Hayden Panettiere‘s grief would follow her through every interview and role she played until she died in August 2026.
From what his family said in a statement, it was clear that cardiomegaly (an enlarged heart) and problems with the aortic valve were what killed Jansen. The medical examiner’s report pointed to a condition that is often not found until it is too late. Having a big heart is not a disease in and of itself. According to the Mayo Clinic, it’s a sign that something else is wrong, like heart damage, a problem with the valves, or long-term stress that the body quietly takes until it can’t take it anymore. There is a cruel quality to that. Someone can look completely healthy. In fact, vital. And yet, something inside is failing in silence.
In the years before he died, Jansen had been having a lot of problems with drugs and alcohol. Hayden was very honest about this in her autobiography, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” which came out in May 2026, just a few months before she died. In her memory, she talked to her father about Jansen’s heroin use and how scared she was for her brother before that February morning. He missed a meeting the day he died. A friend went to see how he was doing. He was not there anymore. While Hayden was in Los Angeles getting ready for the premiere of “Scream VI,” her father called and asked her to tell their mother the news. Yes, she did. She then hung up the phone, went to bed, and didn’t get out until the next morning.
The family never went into full detail in public about whether or not his addiction was a factor in the heart problems. There are many things that can go wrong with the aortic valve. Some are structural, some are degenerative, and some are linked to drug use. The official summary might not have shown the whole picture as clearly as it did. But the family was very careful with what they said and asked for privacy, which is the most natural and sensible thing to do.
Hayden has shared a lot over the years, and what stands out the most is not just grief, but a certain kind of guilt that older siblings feel. “He was my only brother or sister, and it was my job to look out for him,” she told People in September 2024. When she lost him, she felt like she had lost half of her soul. She told The Jay Shetty Podcast through tears that she still wanted to call him all the time three years later. They talked about how big of a person he was. “I never thought anything could take him down.”
Jansen had been an actor himself. He and his sister were in “Tiger Cruise” and “Racing Stripes,” and he did voice work for “Ice Age: The Meltdown.” His other role was in AMC’s “The Walking Dead.” He posted a picture of Hayden styling his hair on Instagram about a month before he died. It was a funny moment between siblings. “Not the first haircut she’s tried to give me,” he said. It’s the kind of small, everyday thing that you can’t stand to think about now.
The artist Hayden kept some of his paintings after he died. According to her, seeing them broke her heart and made her feel better at the same time. In the last few pages of her book, she wrote that he was “the heartbeat of my life.” That phrase says more than any report on health could.
Jansen Panettiere died too soon from a sickness that didn’t show any signs. In the years that followed, his sister tried to grieve in public and privately at the same time. She had to deal with paparazzi cameras outside of a funeral and a body that responded to stress in ways she didn’t understand. She also talked about grief as something that doesn’t go away but changes shape over time. She said, “I’ll never get over it.” “It will just evolve.”
