‘Orange is the New Black’ Star Ruby Rose Opens Up About Losing Her ‘Best Friend’ Hayden Panettiere

Hollywood friendships often look glossy and transactional from the outside, built more on red carpets and mutual publicity than genuine closeness. Ruby Rose has spent the past several weeks pushing back on that assumption, speaking candidly about a bond that meant far more to her than most people realized.

That bond was with Hayden Panettiere, the actress best known for ‘Heroes’ and ‘Nashville,’ who died suddenly on August 16 at just 36 years old. In the weeks since, Rose has stepped forward repeatedly to talk about what their friendship actually looked like behind the scenes, and her latest comments offer the clearest picture yet.

Ruby Rose has opened up about the death of her “best friend” Hayden Panettiere, telling Entertainment Tonight, “All that she ever wanted was to have her story told her way, on her terms.” The remark captures something Rose has returned to again and again in interviews since Panettiere’s passing: a desire to honor her friend’s voice rather than let others define her legacy.

Rose has described the friendship as unusually consistent for two working actors with demanding schedules, telling Entertainment Tonight that she and Panettiere “spoke every day for five years.” That kind of daily contact is rare even among close friends inside the industry, making the loss feel especially personal for Rose.

She’s also shared how the friendship began, recalling that she initially felt wary about forming celebrity friendships after previous negative experiences in the business. Panettiere approached her directly at their first meeting, saying, “Hey, I’m Hayden. Can we go talk somewhere? We’ve got a lot in common,” a moment Rose has credited with kicking off years of genuine closeness.

Panettiere had spent much of the past decade being unusually open about her own battles, including a stint in rehab in 2020 after developing alcohol-related liver damage. Earlier this year, she published a memoir titled ‘This Is Me: A Reckoning,’ which detailed her recovery journey and publicly confirmed she identified as bisexual.

That history of public vulnerability seems to be exactly what Rose was referencing when she spoke about her friend wanting her “story told her way, on her terms.” For an actress who spent years being defined by tabloid headlines rather than her own words, that framing carries a particular weight now that she’s no longer able to speak for herself.

Panettiere died in an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, with authorities initially reporting no signs of foul play. Investigators have since focused on whether an oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl may have been involved, with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Los Angeles and South Carolina offices working to trace the suspected pill back to its source.

Officials have said the official cause and manner of death remain pending final toxicology results, meaning the full picture of what happened is still being pieced together weeks later. That ongoing uncertainty has only added to the difficulty for those closest to her, including Rose, who has continued speaking about her friend even as details of the investigation trickle out.

What makes Rose’s comments stand apart from typical celebrity tributes is how visibly emotional she’s been while giving them, with reports describing her getting choked up mid-interview while discussing Panettiere. That rawness has resonated with fans online, many of whom have pointed to it as evidence of just how genuine the friendship truly was, in contrast to the more polished statements celebrities often release after a loss.

Rose has continued fielding questions about Panettiere in the weeks since her death, suggesting she’s chosen to keep talking about her friend publicly rather than retreating from the subject entirely. That choice lines up with the sentiment she’s repeated most often: that Panettiere deserved to have her story told on her own terms, even after her passing.

Panettiere’s acting career began in childhood, with early roles in ‘Remember the Titans’ before she became a household name playing Claire Bennet on ‘Heroes’ and later Juliette Barnes on ‘Nashville,’ a role that earned her multiple Golden Globe nominations. She also appeared across the ‘Scream’ franchise, most recently returning to the series in 2023.

For Rose, though, the public résumé seems secondary to the private relationship the two women built away from cameras. As tributes continue to pour in from across the industry, her comments stand out for focusing less on Panettiere’s fame and more on who she actually was to the people who knew her best.

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