Hayden Panettiere was nervous to share that she and Brian Hickerson rekindled their romance after he served jail time for domestic violence against the actress in 2021.
Panettiere admitted she was hesitant to discuss their relationship to the public because she was worried about how she would be perceived.
"I did not do any of this lightly," Panettiere said in an interview with The New York Times.
In 2021, Hickerson pleaded no contest to two felony counts of domestic violence after he allegedly punched Panettiere in the face in 2020. He served 33 days in prison and was ordered to serve four years probation.
HAYDEN PANETTTIERE HANGS OUT WITH EX BRIAN HICKERSON AFTER HIS JAIL STINT
Prior to his arrest, the couple had been dating on and off for four years.
"He knows he deserved what happened to him," she said of his jail sentence. She also noted their reunion was "contingent on him continuing on this road of recovery."
According to the outlet, Hickerson was present during the interview and the "Bring it On: All or Nothing" actress referred to him as "babe" as he roamed her condo, "walking around, vacuuming and shooting a basketball through the hoop in her living area."
The "Nashville" actress discussed her struggles with substance abuse during the interview.
In 2015, she left the show for a rehabilitation facility for her depression. "Nashville" went off the air in 2018, the same year her daughter with Wladimir Klitschko went to live with him in Ukraine.
Paneittere and Klitschko began dating in 2009. The pair briefly separated in 2011 and became engaged two years later. They welcomed daughter Kaya in 2014.
In 2021, the actress again entered a treatment center for eight months to focus on her sobriety.
Panettiere said she celebrated two years of being sober and doesn't like to remember the time she was abusing substances. The actress told the outlet she deleted all of the pictures from her phone from that time period except one.
"To remind myself what I looked like," she shared. "The fact that I thought I looked OK at that time is the scariest part to me."
Doctors informed her that her liver was failing, and she was septic when she was 27. "My eyes were yellow," she admitted.
Panettiere said at that time she needed an entire bottle of alcohol to get through the day and would swap in opioids to try to avoid consuming alcohol on occasion.
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Earlier this year, Panettiere and her family mourned the death of her younger brother, Jansen.
The family shared a statement with Fox News Digital in February, revealing his cause of death. "Though it offers little solace, the Medical Examiner reported Jansen's sudden passing was due to cardiomegaly (enlarged heart), coupled with aortic valve complications," the statement said.
"I always see a few secret messages that maybe he meant to put there, maybe he didn’t," Paneittere recalled to The New York Times. "His art, that was the thing that made him happiest."
