In the months before her death at 36, Hayden Panettiere spoke more openly than ever before about the decision that she described as the most gut-wrenching experience of her life: signing over full custody of her daughter Kaya to former partner Wladimir Klitschko in 2018.

Panettiere had Kaya in December 2014 following a traumatic birth that required seven blood transfusions and emergency surgery to repair failing blood vessels. "I closed my eyes and just prayed for my daughter to be OK," she said in one of her final interviews. "I truly was ready to go if it was my time. Kaya being safe and healthy was all that mattered."

In the days following the birth, Panettiere said she felt nothing when she looked at her daughter and developed severe postpartum depression, which she tried to manage with alcohol. "I turned to wine, which ultimately ended up leading to an alcohol dependency," she said. "It was how I would get through each day." She entered treatment when Kaya was just four months old but felt the root cause of her drinking, the depression, had not been properly addressed.

When Klitschko first raised the idea of taking full custody, Panettiere was firmly against it. Speaking on Jay Shetty's On Purpose podcast just weeks before her death, she said: "That was incredibly difficult. The fact that my child wasn't going to be with me all day every day was just... you can't put words to it."

What eventually changed her mind was seeing the life Kaya was living in Ukraine with her father, and recognising how stressful the constant travelling between two countries had become for a small child. She came to see it as the most loving choice she could make.

In her memoir This Is Me: A Reckoning, published just months before her death, she wrote with devastating honesty about what that decision cost her. "Not being under the same roof with her every day has been the most gut-wrenching experience of my life. It's hard to describe the layers of emotion, including sadness, resentment, and anger, I've felt because of it. I grieve that I'm not the mother I thought I'd be and definitely not the mother I want to be. Trust me, no one should ever have to raise a child on FaceTime. And although I miss Kaya so much my heart aches, I know how blessed I am to be her mom."

She described Kaya as "the greatest gift of my life, with all the best parts of her father and me," and said she hoped her daughter would one day understand her story and why they could not always be together.

"She didn't ask to be born into the limelight or my chaos," she wrote. "I want her to have every choice that I didn't, including the ability to live a private life."

In her final months, Panettiere told parenting outlet Momé that her bond with Kaya remained strong. "I love my daughter and I'm so proud of the young woman she is becoming. I talk to her all the time, and I feel so connected to her. She's like a mini-me."

She was planning a trip to Europe to visit her before she died.