Hayden Panettiere’s estranged mother, Lesley Vogel, released a damning statement following the death of her only daughter on Sunday.

“I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments and I think young people who grow up in the entertainment industry — it is a struggle and it’s a very challenging industry and it’s not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path,” Vogel said in an exclusive interview with NBC News, published Tuesday.

“I think it becomes very difficult to be true to yourself, and I think Hayden sadly lost her way,” Vogel said.

“I wish it were different,” she added, “because she had many incredible attributes.”

Vogel, who also lost her son Jansen in 2023 to heart complications, said through tears to NBC that she feels Hayden is “with her brother and they’re at peace.”

Vogel also hit out at Panettiere’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, who was with the actor at the time of her death.

“This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death and that was Brian Hickerson,” she said.

Hickerson and Panettiere’s turbulent relationship was filled with drugs, alcohol and Hickerson’s abuse, which the actor wrote about in her recently released memoir. The “Heroes” star wrote that, once during a fight, he busted “up my face so badly I don’t leave the house for weeks.”

Both Brian Hickerson and his brother, Zach, were in an apartment with Panettiere in Greenville, South Carolina, when she went into cardiac arrest. A person with knowledge of the situation told The New York Times it was caused by an apparent drug overdose.

Vogel and Panettiere were reportedly estranged at the time of her death, which was made complicated by the actor’s recent memoir and her subsequent press tour.

During an interview with podcaster Jay Shetty in May, the “Remember the Titans” actor said that her mom, who was once an actor herself, pushed her into acting at only 8 months old. The relationship between the two broke down further when Panettiere, then 19, asked Vogel to step down as her manager.

“I said to her, ‘I don’t want us to work together anymore. I just want you to be my mom,’” she told Shetty. Vogel reportedly responded “You owe me,” to her daughter.

Panettiere told Shetty that her mom just wanted money, not a relationship.

“The fact that she didn’t care to have a relationship with me was a tough pill to swallow,” the “Heroes” star said.

Vogel later responded to her daughter’s claims in an interview with Page Six in May, saying “the present drama is partially to sell books” and that she was “no-contact” with Panettiere.

“After 20 years of trauma, I took the advice of professionals and chose the no-contact route,” Vogel said. “As many parents of entertainment children [know], we are all too familiar with the painful observation of watching the self-destructive paths they sometimes choose.”

“Sadly, this is out of our control. You cannot save someone who does not want to be saved,” she added.

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