Three weeks after Hayden Panettiere died in a Greenville, South Carolina Airbnb, the man her mother blames for her death was filmed flinging a bar stool across a Wild Wing Cafe before being handcuffed on the floor, yelling her name at police. Brian Hickerson, who was arrested multiple times for beating Panettiere during their eight-year relationship, was released without charges. His brother was not so lucky.
What Actually Happened at Wild Wing Cafe
According to video obtained by TMZ, Saturday night at around 9:10 p.m., Hickerson and his brother Zach were drinking at a table when a group of five middle-aged bar patrons at a nearby table started heckling them about Panettiere's death. An eyewitness told TMZ that Zach approached one of the men and got in his face, which is when the situation detonated.
From there, Page Six reports the scene went sideways fast. Brian is seen on camera hurling a bar stool backwards while multiple people scream at him to stop. He then gets into a confrontation with another man, gets physically lifted from behind by a guy in a backwards red baseball cap, and is eventually dragged outside. The Greenville Police Department confirmed to Page Six that officers responded to an alleged assault at the location and located both brothers along with other patrons involved in the altercation.
Brian was released at the scene without charges. Zach was described by officers as 'highly intoxicated,' arrested for disorderly conduct after yelling profanities at police, and transported to the Greenville County Detention Center. Separately, video posted on X shows Brian sitting on the ground in handcuffs, screaming, 'GPD leaked it when my girlfriend died.'
Who Brian Hickerson Is, for Anyone Who Forgot
Brian Hickerson is a real estate agent who dated Hayden Panettiere on and off for eight years. He was arrested multiple times for domestic violence against her during that relationship. Not once. Multiple times. And yet somehow he remained in her life until the end of it.
Panettiere, best known for her roles in Heroes and Nashville, was pronounced dead on August 16 at the same Airbnb in Greenville where both Brian and Zach were present. According to TMZ, Zach told them last month that Brian found Panettiere unconscious during what he thought was a nap, administered Narcan, called emergency services, and that the two brothers performed CPR together before she was pronounced dead. Her death remains under active investigation.
Brian's attorney, Sloan Ellis, issued a statement to Page Six last month that confirmed 'police found no signs of foul play' and said the family would make no further public comment out of respect for the investigation. Brian has otherwise said nothing publicly since her death. Apparently bar stools are a different matter.
Her Mother Has Some Thoughts
Lesley Vogel, Panettiere's estranged mother, has not been quiet. In a statement to NBC News last month, Vogel said plainly, 'This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death, and that was Brian Hickerson.' She did not dress that up at all.
In a subsequent statement to Entertainment Tonight, Vogel did not name Hickerson directly but the math was not hard. 'It was due to the involvement of a toxic individual who I believe led to her death,' she said. 'Hayden was a beautiful and talented young woman who unfortunately became involved with the wrong person, and although her family tried to extricate him from her life, we were unable to be successful.'
Vogel acknowledged that she and her daughter were estranged at the time of Panettiere's death, but said that estrangement was itself caused by the same 'toxic individual.' A mother watching her daughter die in the orbit of a man the family spent years trying to remove. Let that sit for a second.
The Investigation Is Still Open
Panettiere's death is still under investigation, which means every one of Hickerson's public appearances is going into some kind of file somewhere. The police department that he accused of leaking information is presumably watching video of him flinging furniture on what is now a fairly wide public distribution network.
Page Six reports his attorney's position is that there were no signs of foul play and that police have confirmed as much. That may well be true. Investigations take time and the toxicology picture in cases like this can be complicated. But 'no signs of foul play' is not the same as a closed case, and the man at the center of this has a documented history of violence toward the woman who died in his presence. Those are the facts on the table.
The Dingo Take
A man with multiple domestic violence arrests against his late girlfriend is on camera throwing furniture in a South Carolina bar and screaming her name at police while she has been dead for less than a month. This is not a gray area situation. This is not a story where we need to carefully weigh competing perspectives. This is a guy who beat a woman repeatedly, was present when she died, and is now getting handcuffed at Wild Wing Cafe.
The hecklers at the bar were doing something genuinely cruel and stupid. Mocking someone over a death, regardless of the circumstances, is ugly and small. But Hickerson's response, and his very presence back in Greenville, at bars, throwing things, yelling at cops about leaks, makes it impossible to look away from who this man is and what he has always been. His attorney's careful statements about ongoing investigations and no further comments are doing a lot of heavy lifting right now.
Hayden Panettiere was 36 years old. Her mother tried for years to get him out of her daughter's life and failed. The investigation is still open. Brian Hickerson is free, shouting, and apparently still drinking in the same city where she died. Whatever the law ultimately finds, the picture here is not complicated.
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