When actress Hayden Panettiere met heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko at a guide launch get together in Los Angeles in 2009, she was taking part in Claire Bennet, a cheerleader turned superhero, on the NBC sequence “Heroes.”
Now it’s Wladimir who has grow to be a real-life superhero in his besieged homeland.
The 45-year-old, who can also be nicknamed “Dr. Steelhammer,” and his lookalike 50-year-old brother, Vitali — the mayor of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, since 2014 — have grow to be key figures within the Ukrainian resistance.
Panettiere, in the meantime, has all however disappeared from Hollywood. At this level, she’s as recognized for her turbulent relationship as her profession.
She started courting actor and real-estate agent Brian Hickerson after her 2018 break-up with Wladimir. In Might 2019, the couple bought right into a bodily altercation in Los Angeles that led to Hickerson being arrested on felony home violence and ordered to remain 100 yards from Panettiere.
The case was dismissed in October of that yr, and the 2 have been seen collectively once more a month later. On Valentine’s Day 2020, Hickerson was arrested once more and charged with home battery in opposition to the actress in Wyoming.
In July 2020, he was arrested a 3rd time, later pleading no contest to 2 felony counts of injuring a partner or girlfriend and being sentenced to 45 days in jail.
On the time, Panettiere posted on Instagram: “I’m ready to do my half to verify this man by no means hurts anybody once more. I’m grateful for my help system, which helped me discover the braveness to regain my voice and my life.”
Regardless of a five-year protecting order, she was noticed with Hickerson once more two months after his launch.
Final month, Panettiere and Hickerson brawled with patrons on the Sundown Marquis lodge in LA, with among the combat captured by cell telephones — the primary time the actress had been seen on digital camera in a very long time.
Panettiere, now 32, started working in TV commercials when she was simply 11 months outdated. She was born in Palisades, NY, in 1989, the daughter of an FDNY captain and a former cleaning soap opera actress. Following in her mom’s footsteps, the aspiring star had full-time roles on “One Life to Stay” and “Guiding Gentle” whereas nonetheless in elementary faculty. By ninth grade she was being homeschooled, permitting extra flexibility for her profession — together with recurring elements on “Ally McBeal” and “Malcolm within the Center,” in addition to Disney films “The Ice Princess” and “Bear in mind the Titans.”
Whereas on “Heroes,” the present that made her a star, Panettiere dated her co-star Milo Ventimiglia (“This Is Us”) when she was 18 and he was 30.
At 20, she met Klitschko via their mutual good friend, Bosnian refugee turned multi-millionaire philanthropist Diana Jenkins, now often known as one of many stars of “Actual Housewives of Beverly Hills.” Each had been concerned in Jenkins’ “Room 23,” a pictures guide to profit human rights initiatives.
Their relationship was on-and-off earlier than he proposed in 2013 and their daughter, Kaya, was born a yr later.
Panettiere has been open about battling a foul bout of postpartum melancholy that lasted for a number of years, inflicting her to take a go away of absence from “Nashville,” the TV present on which she performed a rustic singer from 2012 to 2018. The sequence was her final position.
“There’s loads of misunderstanding and I really feel like there’s lots of people on the market who suppose that it’s not actual, that it’s not true, that it’s one thing that’s made up in [a sufferer’s] thoughts,” she stated of her postpartum melancholy in 2015.
“It’s one thing that’s utterly uncontrollable and it’s actually painful and it’s actually scary and ladies want loads of help.”
The actress added: “Once they inform you about postpartum melancholy you consider, ‘OK, I really feel detrimental emotions in direction of my little one. I need to injure my little one. I need to damage my little one.’ I’ve by no means ever had these emotions, and a few girls do.”
She and Wladimir broke up for good in 2018, however reportedly stay on good phrases and have been pictured collectively at Artwork Basel in Miami in 2020. Whereas they’ve talked about co-parenting, the previous boxer has major custody of Kaya and lives together with her in Ukraine. The actress has by no means revealed why that’s the association.
“They’re very, very personal,” Hayden’s father, Alan “Skip” Panettiere, who now works as an actual property agent simply outdoors New York Metropolis, instructed The Submit. “They wouldn’t need me to say something about it.”
In 2019, a supply instructed Folks: “[Hayden’s] life is in flux together with her daughter dwelling away, and she or he has different points weighing on her thoughts.”
In February, when Russia invaded her ex’s homeland, Panettiere commented on social media that Kaya was “protected and never in Ukraine.”
Wladimir and his brother are stated to be two of the very best boxers in historical past. Collectively, they earned greater than $100 million within the ring, and Wladimir captured a gold medal as a brilliant heavyweight within the 1996 Olympics.
Together with President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Klitschko brothers at the moment are dealing with down a a lot greater foe, Russian President Vladimir Putin. They’ve taken to social media and information broadcasts world wide, displaying themselves walking through the rubble of Kyiv after the missile strikes in mid-March in addition to different devastation.
Wladimir went to Bucha after the bloodbath, posting graphic video of sure, lifeless our bodies on the bottom that he stated have been civilians and accusing Putin of “mass genocide.”
“I’m within the metropolis of Bucha, on the outskirts of the capital. What occurred right here — and in all places in Ukraine what is occurring — this isn’t a particular operation, this isn’t army objects, that is civilians,” Wladimir stated within the April 3 video.
The digital camera then panned to the our bodies on the bottom.
“They’ve been shot within the head, with tied fingers behind their again,” Wladimir stated.
“That is genocide of the Ukrainian inhabitants, and that’s precisely what the Russian regime, Putin’s regime, Russian military, is doing, killing civilians with tied fingers behind their again and with a shot of their heads.”
The brothers additionally appeared on ABC News final Sunday to plead for assist.
“First and principally, we’d like weapons,” Wladimir stated in an interview with ABC News Sunday alongside Vitali. “We can’t defend our nation with fists.”
At their peak, between 2004 and 2015, the brothers dominated heavyweight boxing and saved a promise to their mom that they might by no means combat one another. However Vitali at all times caught nearer to residence whereas Wladimir opted for a extra jet-set life in London, Miami and LA, sources in Ukraine stated.
“Vitali has been within the political life for some time however loads of us are shocked that Wladimir turned so devoted to the trigger,” Ukrainian analyst Vladyslav Faraponov at Internews Ukraine instructed The Submit.
“He has a really glamorous life overseas with loads of properties everywhere in the world. I didn’t count on Wlad to be so courageous and brave to go to Bucha. Each of [the brothers] have been a logo of delight and nice victories for the nation earlier than the battle however now they’ve grow to be a logo of nice protection and safety as nicely. Once we see them side-by-side we really feel Kyiv is just not underneath a giant risk.”
Panettiere, in the meantime, stays amongst her ex’s most ardent supporters, posting on Instagram in February: “I’m praying for my household and mates there and everybody who’s preventing.”
