Connie Britton Shares Emotional Details From Hayden Panettiere's Memorial: "We All Just Bawled"

Connie Britton is opening up about the private celebration of life for her Nashville costar Hayden Panettiere, held in Malibu on September 19. Roughly 80 guests attended, including Nashville alum Charles Esten, who performed. Britton told People that the room full of castmates and friends“all just bawled.”Panettiere was found dead at 36 in South Carolina on August 16, about a month before the memorial.

Britton also shared the memory that’s sticking with everyone: whenever her young son visited the Nashville set, Hayden would stop everything to dote on him. The two actresses played mother and daughter for six seasons, from 2012 to 2018, and Panettiere wrote about their bond in her May memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning. That history is part of why this loss has landed so hard with fans who watched their relationship play out on screen.

Panettiere’s death was ruled an accident from the toxic effects of fentanyl, 4-ANPP, Alprazolam, Methocarbamol and Quetiapine, and her rep says the investigation continues. It adds another name to the ongoing conversation about overdose deaths and the pressures of growing up in the spotlight. What’s left, as Britton put it, is the community of people who remain and hold each other up.

Did you watch Nashville when it aired, and what’s your favorite Hayden Panettiere role? Tell us in the comments.