Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington has committed suicide by hanging TMZ has reported.
Law enforcement sources tell us the singer hanged himself at a private residence in Palos Verdes Estates in L.A. County. His body was discovered Thursday just before 9 AM.
Chester was married with 6 children from 2 wives.
The singer struggled with drugs and alcohol for years.
He had said in the past he had considered committing suicide because he had been abused as a child by an older male.
Chester was very close with Chris Cornell, who himself committed suicide by hanging in May. Today would have been Cornell’s 53rd birthday.
Chester wrote an open letter to Chris on the day of Chris’ suicide.
The band has had a string of hits over the years, including “Faint,” “In the End” and “Crawling.” Linkin Park crossed music genres, collaborating with Jay-Z.
The band’s album, “Meteora,” was one of the biggest alternative albums in music history.
Bennington was 41.
He was an American singer and songwriter best known as the frontman for the rock band Linkin Park.
He was also the lead singer for Dead by Sunrise and fronted Stone Temple Pilots from 2013 to 2015.
Bennington first gained prominence as a vocalist following the release of Linkin Park’s debut album, Hybrid Theory, in 2000, which became a commercial success.
The album was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2005, making it the best-selling debut album of the decade, as well as one of the few albums to ever hit that many sales.
Linkin Park’s following studio albums, Meteora (2003), Minutes to Midnight (2007), A Thousand Suns (2010), Living Things (2012), and The Hunting Party (2014), continued the band’s success.
Bennington formed his own band, Dead by Sunrise, as a side project in 2005.
The band’s debut album, Out of Ashes, was released on October 13, 2009.
He worked on new material with Stone Temple Pilots in 2013 to release the EP High Rise on October 8, 2013 via their own record label, Play Pen. Bennington has been ranked in the Top 100 Heavy Metal Vocalists by Hit Parader (No. 46).
