This article was originally published on Crafting Your Home. A human contributor also wrote and edited the post.
Blake Lively has once again reminded the world why kindness matters, this time through grief. On Monday, August 17, the actress took to her Instagram Stories to honor two of her former co-stars, Hayden Panettiere and Michelle Trachtenberg, who both starred alongside her in the 2005 Disney film “Ice Princess.”
The tribute arrived just a day after Panettiere’s shocking death was confirmed, and it has since resonated far beyond the usual wave of celebrity condolences because of the message Lively attached to it.
Rather than posting a lengthy essay or a string of throwback photos, Lively shared a compilation of clips from “Ice Princess,” the coming-of-age sports comedy that also starred Joan Cusack and Kim Cattrall.
Over the video, she wrote a short but pointed message: “Be. Kind. You never know what others are going through.” She followed it with a note of gratitude for both women, writing, “Thank you to both these women for all the joy you brought so many.”
It was simple, but given everything that has now come to light about both actresses’ private struggles, the words landed with unusual weight.
The Tribute That Reframed a Childhood Movie
For an entire generation that grew up in the mid-2000s, “Ice Princess” was a fixture of childhood television, a lighthearted story about a science-minded teen who trades the debate team for figure skates.
Trachtenberg played Casey Carlyle, the film’s academically gifted lead who defies her mother’s expectations to chase a spot on the ice.
Panettiere played Gen Harwood, the reigning captain of the skating team who begins as Casey’s biggest rival before the two become genuine friends by the film’s end.
It was the kind of role that, at the time, felt like nothing more than a fun supporting part in a Disney movie.
That is precisely why Lively’s tribute has struck such a nerve. Both of the film’s central young stars are now gone, and both died well before their fortieth birthdays.
Trachtenberg passed away on February 26, 2025, at age 39, after being found unresponsive inside her New York City apartment. Panettiere died on August 16, 2026, at just 36, days before what would have been her 37th birthday.
Watching the two of them, young and full of energy in a movie made two decades ago, now carries a different kind of gravity, and Lively seemed acutely aware of that when she chose those particular clips to accompany her message.
Lively’s decision to lead with “be kind” rather than simply mourning her co-stars is also notable given her own history with both actresses. She and Trachtenberg later worked together again on “Gossip Girl,” where Trachtenberg played the scheming Georgina Sparks opposite Lively’s Serena van der Woodsen.
When Trachtenberg died last year, Lively paid a separate, much longer tribute to her, describing her as “electricity” and writing that “you knew when she entered a room because the vibration changed.”
She called Trachtenberg “a kind person, through and through,” and noted that the world had lost “a deeply sensitive and good person” in her former co-star.
That history makes this newest, quieter tribute feel less like a passing gesture and more like the continuation of a friendship that outlasted the show that brought them together.
What We Know About How They Died
Panettiere’s death is still being actively investigated, and several important facts remain unconfirmed. According to a statement from the Greenville County Coroner’s Office in South Carolina, officers and EMS personnel responded to a 911 call around 1:50 p.m. on Sunday, August 16, after an acquaintance reported an unresponsive woman inside a residence in Greenville.
Panettiere was found in cardiac arrest, and despite advanced life-support measures, she was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy was completed the following day, and officials said no signs of trauma were found that would have contributed to her death.
However, the coroner’s office has stated clearly that the official cause and manner of death remain pending further investigation, including additional toxicology studies, and no final determination has been released.
Panettiere’s father, Skip, confirmed her death in a statement shared through her representative. “It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden,” he said.
“She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her, and to the millions who watched her onscreen.”
He asked that the family be given privacy while they process what he called an unimaginable loss. Tributes poured in quickly from people who had worked with her, including actress Viola Davis, who co-starred with Panettiere in 2016’s “Custody” and described her on Instagram as “an old, wise soul with such a deep heart.”
Trachtenberg’s cause of death, by contrast, has already been formally established. The New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that she died of complications of diabetes mellitus, with her manner of death ruled natural.
Her family had initially objected to a full autopsy for religious reasons, and because investigators found no evidence of foul play, that request was honored.
The official finding was instead reached through a later review of toxicology and laboratory testing, which was announced roughly two months after her death.
Reports at the time noted that Trachtenberg had recently undergone a liver transplant and had privately told friends she was struggling with her health in the months before she died.
Hayden’s Own Words About Grief Now Read Differently
Long before her own death, Panettiere had already become one of Hollywood’s most candid voices on the subjects of addiction, postpartum depression, and personal loss, which is part of why Lively’s plea for kindness has resonated so deeply with fans this week.
Panettiere spoke openly for years about her struggles with substance use and anxiety, and about the devastating aftermath of losing her younger brother and only sibling, actor Jansen Panettiere, who died suddenly in February 2023 at age 28 from complications related to an enlarged heart.
In a 2024 interview, Panettiere described the toll that loss took on her in stark, personal terms. “He was my only sibling, and it was my job to protect him,” she said at the time. “When I lost him, I felt like I lost half of my soul.”
She went on to say that she never expected the grief to fully lift, telling the outlet, “No matter how many years go by, I will never get over his loss.”
She also spoke about how the intense media attention surrounding her brother’s funeral worsened a longtime struggle with agoraphobia, and how the physical toll of grief left her feeling, in her words, unrecognizable to herself.
Jansen’s own family had described him in similarly tender terms after his passing. “Jansen’s heart could be seen in his eyes, and his charm in his brilliant, engaging smile,” the family said in a joint statement at the time, adding that “his charisma, warmth, compassion for others, and his creative spirit will live forever in our hearts.”
Reading those words again now, alongside Panettiere’s own reflections on losing him, adds another layer of sorrow to a week that has already asked a lot of her fans.
It’s against that backdrop that Lively’s simple, two-word directive, “be kind,” carries so much extra meaning. Panettiere was a woman who spent years being remarkably open about pain that most people would have kept hidden, from addiction to grief to the pressures of being a former child star living under constant public scrutiny.
Trachtenberg, by contrast, kept her declining health largely private, telling only a small circle of friends how much she was struggling before her death. Two very different women, two very different approaches to sharing their pain, and yet both are now gone.
For fans who grew up watching Panettiere and Trachtenberg race each other around a rink in “Ice Princess,” or who later followed Panettiere through “Heroes” and “Nashville,” or Trachtenberg through “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Gossip Girl,” this week has understandably felt disorienting.
These were actresses who occupied a specific, formative corner of pop culture for an entire generation, and losing both of them within roughly eighteen months of each other has hit many people harder than they expected.
Lively’s tribute didn’t try to explain that feeling away. Instead, it simply asked people to sit with it and to extend a little more grace to the people around them, because, as she put it plainly, you never really know what someone else is carrying.
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