Bring It On star Hayden Panettiere’s ex-fiancé and father of her child, Wladimir Klitschko, filed an urgent petition in a California court seeking permission to act as their 11-year-old daughter’s temporary representative to protect her inheritance after her mother’s death.
Urgent Petition Over Estate
Klitschko, a former world champion boxer, has had full custody of their daughter, Kaya, for most of her life, and they have lived together in Ukraine. Kaya is the sole heir to Panettiere’s fortune, and the filing in Los Angeles County cites several items that were seized in a federal investigation into the actor’s death.
It also notes that unnamed and unauthorized people have been accessing Panettiere’s residence in Los Angeles, and multiple valuables are reported missing. Klitschko filed the petition as “urgent and essential” that he be granted temporary guardian of his daughter’s estate.
“Without an immediate appointment for these purposes, there is a high probability that property belonging to Hayden’s Estate may be lost, damaged or dissipated before a duly appointed personal representative can be in place to protect it,” the filing says.
“This directly and adversely affects Kaya, as she is the sole heir entitled to the entirety of Hayden’s probate estate.”
Klitschko’s legal team filed the petition on Thursday, but TMZ did not dig out the information and reveal it until Monday. The filing emphasizes that the purpose of seeking control of the estate is strictly to protect his daughter’s future assets until a permanent administrator replaces him.
Death of Hayden Panettiere
Panettiere, best known for her roles in ‘Scream’ and ‘Nashville,’ died in August 2026 at the age of 36. She was found unconscious in an Airbnb she was renting in Greenville, South Carolina, by her on-again, off-again boyfriend and his brother.
The Greenville County Coroner ruled her death an accident. The report revealed that she died of an accidental overdose involving various drugs, including a single pill of fentanyl. The Drug Enforcement Administration is working to determine where the drugs came from and who supplied her with the fatal dose.
The young actress recently became outspoken about her struggles with addiction and had been in rehab just weeks prior to her death. In her memoir published in May of this year, Panettiere opened up about her addiction to alcohol, opioids, and having postpartum depression after her daughter’s birth in 2014.
Panettiere’s father said that she had plans to visit her daughter in Ukraine just days after her death, as Kaya has been living with Klitschko full-time since she was 2 years old. Klitschko, 50, began dating Panettiere in 2009 and the couple got engaged in 2013. He is an Olympic gold medalist who held several heavyweight titles between 2000 and 2015.
Seizing Property
In his urgent petition for temporary guardianship over his daughter’s estate, Klitschko says that federal agents seized Panettiere’s property during the investigation into her death, but an authorized person has not been assigned to them to ensure those items or property are returned.
After Panettiere’s death, the filing states, “federal agents accessed Hayden’s Los Angeles residence as part of an ongoing investigation and removed property belonging to Hayden’s Estate.”
The filing states that an unnamed person “gained unauthorized access to Hayden’s property” before Panettiere’s death, so she and Klitschko hired security to protect it. The petition claims the unnamed person is expected to continue trying to “misappropriate” property belonging to her estate; therefore, their daughter.
Klitschko also alleges in the filing that he believes non-family members involved with Panettiere, possibly that on-again-off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson, destroyed her emails and stole several items, including jewelry that has disappeared or has not been accounted for.
A hearing on the petition is scheduled for October 8, 2026.
