My sad day began with a depressing news headline – Chester Bennington, Linkin Park’s lead vocalist commits suicide by hanging himself with a belt between the door at his house in Palos Verdes Estates, California. The body was discovered by his servant around 9:00 a.m. on 20th July 2017. The authorities are further investigating the death. Mike Shinoda confirmed his suicide by tweeting, “Shocked and heartbroken, but it’s true. An official statement will come out as soon as we have one”.
Chester Bennington was one of a kind, he was an extraordinary artist. His screeching vocals were so good that one gets goosebumps. His songs can be found in every 90’s person’s playlist, it apparently helped so many people get through rough times in life. A part of our childhood died with him. Such a sad demise.
Chester Bennington gained popularity as a lead singer by the release of Linkin Park’s debut album, Hybrid Theory, in 2000, which was the best-selling debut album of the decade. The band’s success continued with the release of Meteora in 2003. Bennington is in the ‘Top 100 heavy vocalists’ by Hit Parader.
Why did he commit suicide? He was a successful singer, had a family, was rich and famous, he had everything but I guess that’s not it maybe he was depressed about his past, maybe he was depressed about his friends death who also committed suicide two months back, maybe it was some memory deep within that was smothering him, no one knows the actual reason for why he did this but in a recent interview he said that he could either just give up and f**king die or he could fight, he further said that the place between his skull is a bad neighborhood and he must not go there alone and that there is a different Chester inside.
Chester Bennington was born on 20th March 1976, in Phoenix, Arizona. His father worked as a police detective in child sex-abuse department and his mother was a nurse. Bennington had a pretty rough childhood as his parents got divorced when he was only 11 years old, and his father got custody of him. Because of the divorce, he got depressed and started abusing alcohol, cocaine, LSD, marijuana. When he was 17 he moved with his mother and she discovered his drug abuse and was strictly prohibited from leaving the house.
He was also physically bullied in high school for being skinny and different and said that he was knocked around like a rag doll at school. He developed the interest in music at a very young age and started writing poetry about his thoughts and life, his dream was to become a member of a band named Stone Temple Pilots, which he later achieved.
Chester reported in an interview that he was sexually abused by an old man when he was only 7 years old and this abuse continued until the age of 13. He was frightened to tell anyone as he thought that people will think that he is lying or is gay. This all affected him so much that he started hating everybody, thought of killing them and run away far from all this. He later told about this to his father but decided not to file a case against him.
Suicide is a terrible thing to do but the people who kill themselves have a disastrous life, they have gone through some really disturbing activities and their depressing thoughts forces them to quit in order to get rid of this world. Bennington used to say that there were times when he even struggled to get out of his bed out into the world which is full of shit.
Somewhere in the lyrics, someone should have paid attention to where they are coming from. Every artist is sad about his death and is saying that it is a great loss to the industry, he was a human being with a caring heart and nice soul he will always be remembered as a legend.
Chester has six children and was currently married to his second wife Talinda. He was also the God father of Cornell’s 11 year old son. The Cornell’s family is so overwhelmed because of Chester Bennington’s death which comes so soon after the death of Chris Cornell. Cornell’s wife tweeted, “Just when I thought my heart couldn’t break any more,”. He performed Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” at Cornell’s funeral but was unable to finish the song because he kept on choking.
The Linkin Park band has scattered into pieces and was devastated by the death of their lead singer. The band which sold more than 70 million albums world wide might not be able to continue the band and produce any more music.
The people who commits suicide aren’t cowards, cowards are the ones that treat them so badly that they wanna end their life. It shows that depression is a tough thing to deal with and that people can be stating one thing ostensibly and feeling other inside.
– This article is an opinion based piece of work of the writer.