The Los Angeles County coroner has confirmed the cause of Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington’s death.
The 41-year-old was found by an employee on Thursday in the bedroom of his house and while a note has not been found, the death is being treated as a suspected suicide. An autopsy is pending.
Bennington had spoken about his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, as well as depression. “My whole life, I’ve just felt a little off,” he said in an interview earlier this year with Music Choice. “I find myself getting into these patterns of behaviour or thought – especially when I’m stuck up here [in my head]; I like to say that, ‘This is like a bad neighbourhood, and I should not go walking alone.’”
The singer had been close friends with singer Chris Cornell, who killed himself earlier this year; Thursday would have marked his 53rd birthday. Bennington performed at his funeral and honored him via a post on social media after his death, saying that he “can’t imagine a world” without him in it. Cornell’s widow, Vicky Cornell, tweeted yesterday: “Just when I thought my heart couldn’t break any more.....I love you.”
Tributes have continued to pour in for Bennington from the music industry, with Bennington’s former bandmates at the Stone Temple Pilots (he anchored the band from 2013 to 2015) issuing a statement on their official site, entitled “Chester”.
“It is a sad day today to know that so many of us will no longer share in your laughter, friendship and love,” it reads. “You showed us time and time again what it is to be an incredible human being. A beacon of light and hope is what you will always be to us. We love you Chester. We will miss you.”
Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst also remembered him on Instagram, sharing a picture of the pair with the words “Gonna miss you”, while Placebo warned on Facebook of the “life-threatening nature of the twin demons of addiction and depression”.
It was also revealed that Bennington, along with his fellow band members, had recently wrapped an episode of Carpool Karaoke with James Corden just days before his death. Linkin Park released their last album earlier this year and had been touring before Bennington’s death.
In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.
• This article was amended on 24 July 2017 to adhere to Guardian guidelines on the reporting of suicide.
