Ruby Rose remembers best friend Hayden Panettiere: 'We spoke every day for five years'

Ruby Rose says Hayden Panettiere was her best friend, and that the two spoke every day for five years before Panettiere's death. Panettiere died on Aug. 16 at age 36, The Hollywood Reporter reported.

Rose spoke about Panettiere in an interview with Entertainment Tonight at the premiere of Fox's Special Forces. She teared up while remembering her friend, Today reported. They never stopped talking.

Rose said the friendship grew through those daily calls. After talking with Panettiere, she realised they had everything in common. Entertainment Tonight shared part of the tribute in an Instagram reel.

Rose also said Panettiere wanted her own story told her way, on her terms. The remark points to Panettiere's May memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, in which she wrote about her strained relationship with her mother, Lesley Vogel.

Panettiere was found unresponsive in an Airbnb in Greenville, South Carolina, where she was staying with on-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson. Her death was reported as an apparent drug overdose, Variety reported. Preliminary autopsy results found no signs of trauma on her body.

An investigation into the circumstances around her death is ongoing by local and federal authorities. No further official findings have been released.

Before Panettiere died, Rose had shared texts reportedly sent by Panettiere that discussed alleged cruelty by her mother, Entertainment Weekly reported. Those messages have not been independently verified beyond Rose's account.

For viewers who knew Panettiere from Heroes and Nashville, Rose's tribute adds a personal account of her final years. It describes a close, constant friendship. And it leaves the official questions around her death still open.