Hayden Panettiere’s ex Brian Hickerson reveals horrifying abuse incident he didn’t want in her memoir

Hayden Panettiere’s ex Brian Hickerson shared a horrifying story from their troubled relationship, admitting he was abusive towards her.

Panettiere and Hickerson dated on and off from 2018 to 2022, though the relationship was tumultuous and marred by multiple domestic violence incidents and arrests.

Hickerson spoke to TMZ about Panettiere’s upcoming memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” in which she writes about the domestic abuse in their relationship.

Hickerson said there was one particular incident he didn’t want in her book, but she included it anyway.

“There’s a story where I was drunk, right? Hayden was standing across the room and I had a phone in my hand and I said, ‘Hayden I’ll give you 10 seconds to run as fast as you can before I throw it at you,'” he recalled.

“Who wants to read something about themselves, right?” he admitted about reading her memoir. “But you gotta be vulnerable and I did it. I did it, so.”

Hickerson said he misses Panettiere “every day” and that “of course” he thought about getting back together with her.

“I went into such a dark place, man, drugs, alcohol,” he recalled of their time together. “Good God, almighty, she’s five foot two on paper, four foot 11 in real life. I mean, come on.”

In April 2021, Hickerson was sentenced to 45 days in county jail after pleading no contest to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend. He was also hit with four years of probation, ordered to attend 52 domestic violence classes, and received a five-year restraining order that bars him from going near Panettiere.

The “Nashville” alum, 36, spoke about revisiting her abusive relationship with Hickerson in her memoir, telling Us Weekly it was “brutal, traumatic, and emotional.”

“It was important for me to word that experience properly,” she said.

She added, “It’s a very embarrassing subject. I’ve always seen myself as such a resilient and strong woman. The idea that I could allow something like this to happen to me blew my mind. It blew the minds of the people that knew me best.”