Chester Bennington is no longer with us. The lead vocalist of Linkin Park committed suicide in California Residence at the age of 41. In the End, Waiting for the End and Heavy are just a few of his songs which inspired and motivated many lives. The lead voice of the American Rock Band Linkin Park gave many songs to keep us motivated in times of trouble. But he himself succumbed to the pressures of his life in the end. Chester Bennington has become one of the many people in the entertainment industry to have taken their own lives by committing suicide. There might be only a few people who would never have heard of Linkin Park’s hit songs from the 2000s while they were growing up. Chester Bennington had a very troubled life from his childhood itself. Presented here are some of the facts about him which would let you know about his troubled times and his times of greatness.
He suffered sex abuse at the age of 7
At a tender age of Seven, Chester Bennington was a victim of Sex abuse at the hands of an older male friend. he suffered for a period of over 5 years until the age of 13. He chose to never reveal this to anyone initially because of the fear of getting bullied. Interestingly, his father was himself a police detective who worked in child abuse cases.
Drugs and Alcohol abuse had almost ruined his life
Following his tragic life as a child, Chester’s confidence completely shattered into bits when his parents divorced. He was 11 years old at that time and started living under his father’s custody after the divorce. His father was himself emotionally unstable and thus Chester had to resort to drugs such as Cocaine, Marijuana, and LSD to keep himself stable and picked up a severe addiction to drinking. All of this continued for a long long time in his life until he decided to finally quit. In an interview with teamrock.com in 2016, Chester said “”I knew that I had a drinking problem, a drug problem and that parts of my personal life were crazy but I didn’t realize how much that was affecting the people around me until I got a good dose of ‘Here’s-what-you’re-really-like’. “It was a shock. They said that I was two people – Chester and then that f**ing guy. I didn’t want to be that guy.”
He almost quit his music career before going on to release the Superhit ‘Hybrid Theory’ Album in 2000.
Chester Bennington was initially not able to make a mark in the music industry, he once formed a new band with Sean Dowdell called Grey Daze in 1997 and left it a year later. Until 1998, he was not able to find any other band to join and was almost on the verge of giving up, and started working on a digital services firm. This was when Jeff Blue, the vice-president of Art & Repertoire (A&R) of a Los Angeles based Music company offered him an audition with a few members who later became a part of the Linkin Park band. After an early failure to sign a record deal, it was Jeff Blue who again came to the rescue, this time when he was the A&R vice-president of Warner Bros. and helped the band sign a deal with their record company Warner Bros. Records.
He became the lead singer of his favorite childhood Music band
For Chester Bennington, it was a dream come true when he was offered the role of lead singer in his dream band Stone Temple Pilots. He joined the band in February 2013 but had to quit in 2015 due to commitment issue with Linkin Park.
He was a Tattoo enthusiast
Bennington loved the art of Tattoo making and also worked and promoted his friend Sean Dowdell’s Tattoo parlor called Club Tattoo. Sean Dowdell was also a part of Bennington’s early struggles in the music scene and had formed two bands with him.
He died on the birthday of his friend Chris Cornell who also had committed suicide two months ago
Chester Bennington was a really close friend of Chris Carrell, who has been the lead vocalist for the bands of Audioslave and Soundgarden. Bennington was also the Godfather of Chris’s son, Christopher. He was very dejected at the news of his friend’s death on May 18, 2017, and sang the song “Hallelujah” (a Leonard Cohen song) at his funeral. He also performed “One More Light” with his band Linkin Park as a tribute to Chris Carrell at the Jimmy Kimmel Live show on May 19, 2017.
It’s a really sad fact that that the day Chris Bennington committed suicide was the 53rd Birthday of his late friend Chris Cornell. Linkin Park won’t ever be the same as before in the absence of their lead singer, and the way of his death only shines light on the fact that even the most successful people could have a life full of stress, and there are many such people in the whole world and not just in the entertainment industry, that suffer from mental illnesses such as depression, tend to have suicidal tendencies and desperately need proper care and attention.