Why did Chester Bennington die? Why did lead singer Chester Bennington from Linkin Park hang himself?

Frontman of one of the most popular rock bands in the worldLinkin Park found dead on July 20 at his home in Los Angeles. He was only 41 years old.

Bennington's death was confirmed by his colleague, Mike Shinoda:“I’m shocked, heartbroken, but it’s true. An official statement will follow as soon as we have it.” Soon all the leading tabloids began writing about the musician’s death, and the police officially confirmed the information.

Childhood

The name Chester Bennington is a symbol of the music of the early 2000s. Many of today's 30-year-olds grew up on his work. He was born on March 20, 1976 in a small town in the USA. Chester's childhood cannot be called simple: his parents divorced and divided their children, the boy remained with his father, a police detective. Perhaps for this reason the guy became acquainted with alcohol and drugs very early. But his main hobby was always music.

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At the age of 17, he moved back to his mother, who was horrified by his lifestyle. The mother somehow tried to influence her son, but it didn’t help much. As the musician himself said, by the age of 20 he already had serious problems with alcohol. Music saved me.

First group

His first project was the groupGray Daze, which he formed in 1993 with Sean Dowdell, drummer. They quickly became stars in their state, but they couldn’t reach the national level due to conflicts, so after 4 years the group broke up.

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Despite the fact that the group was quite popular, this did not bring it financial success. The musician worked at a popular diner to somehow make ends meet. So, when proposing to his first wife Samantha, Bennington didn’t have money for a ring, so they just got tattoos. But the girl believed in him, because he was really talented.

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The beginning of Linkin Park

In 1997, the Xero group, foundedMike Shinoda And Brad Delson, was looking for a new new vocalist, but it was impossible to find a suitable vocalist. Friends recommended Bennington. Shinoda called Chester on his birthday, March 20, and asked him to send him a tape of the recording. He did it right away, which greatly impressed the guys in the group. They asked him to immediately come to Los Angeles, where rehearsals began. Very soon the group overtook the long-awaited fame.

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The team tried several names: Xero, Hybrid Theory, Lincoln Park. They transformed the last name into Linkin Park - with this name the musicians came to world fame.

The first album Hybrid Theory, released in 2000, blew up all the charts. The album sold 30 million copies, the group received a Grammy in the category " Best Performance in the style of hard rock." Linkin Park's hits tore up the charts, and the "In the End" video, broadcast on MTV, received the award for best video clip of the year.

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Everyone tried to copy Linkin Park's style. From an unknown group with their own sound, they became world stars, whose songs were heard in all corners of the planet. The group's commercial success was the envy of the main stars of world pop music.

At the peak of popularity: old habits

Linkin Park has become a symbol of the first decade of the 21st century. The group's songs regularly became soundtracks for games and films. And the musicians managed to get out of poverty: they all became millionaires. However, the past does not always let go so easily: alcohol and drugs have become Chester’s faithful companions in this new life. It became difficult to communicate with him: he had to go on tour separately, as his colleagues found it difficult to tolerate the musician’s behavior.

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But still, life gradually became better. The 23-year-old guy became a millionaire, was wildly popular with women, and soon became an exemplary family man. He married model Talinda Bentley for the second time and they had 4 children. They adopted two children.

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It seemed that Bennington had achieved everything that could be desired, but, as it turned out, he was walking on the edge of an abyss. Everything was going great in my career too: my own music project, cameo roles to the cinema. Linkin Park has released seven studio albums, last " One More Light" was released in May 2017. The album was poorly received by critics, but loyal fans still regularly bought records and went to concerts.

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External well-being can be deceiving. What Chester had to struggle with is known only to those closest to him. On May 18 of this year, his close friend, Chris Cornell, lead singer of Soundgarden, died. His death made a huge impression on the musician. He took his fatal step on July 20, his friend’s birthday. Accident or conscious choice? No one knows.

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What is certain is that Linkin Park’s music will forever remain in the hearts of fans who now cannot comprehend what happened.

Illustration copyright EPA

Soloist American group Linkin Park Chester Bennington is found dead in his home in suburban Los Angeles. According to preliminary data, he committed suicide.

The musician was married twice and had six children.

Bennington, 41, was found dead in his home in Palos Verdes Estates, California, around 9 a.m. local time.

"Shocked and heartbroken but it's true. Official statement will be released as soon as it's ready," Linkin Park member Mike Shinoda tweeted.

Tabolid TMZ notes that Bennington has long years there were problems with alcohol and drugs. In one interview, he stated that he was considering suicide due to being sexually abused as a child.

The TMZ report also states that Bennington committed suicide on the birthday of his friend, Soundgarden leader Chris Cornell, who died on May 18 in a Detroit hotel. Forensic experts confirmed that Cornell also committed suicide.

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Chester Bennington was born in Phoenix in 1976. Music career He started at the age of 17 in the band Gray Daze, and in 1997 became the vocalist of Linkin Park.

Linkin Park was formed in 1996 and has sold about 70 million copies of its albums worldwide. Many of them went platinum. The latest album, One More Light, was released in May of this year.

Illustration copyright PA Image caption Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda at one of the band's concerts

Voice of a generation

Steve Holden, BBC

Among the generation that grew up in the early 2000s, it would be difficult to find anyone who did not own a copy debut album Linkin Park Hybrid Theory.

It has sold over 30 million copies worldwide and remains one of the best-selling albums since the turn of the millennium.

Linkin Park's successful trick was to combine elements of metal and rock with rap and hip-hop, which took the form of a nu metal style in songs such as Crawling, In The End and Numb.

Probably the band's greatest asset was Chester's voice. He had a fanatical, hoarse voice that filled stadiums and forced people to sing in chorus songs that became anthems.

Although he was angry and stern on stage, in person he was friendly and cheerful.

Latest album Group One More Light was recorded in a slightly different direction - the musicians worked with famous pop composers Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter, and also collaborated with British grime artist Stormzy.

Chester Charles Bennington is an American musician who gained greatest popularity as the vocalist of Linkin Park. Winner of two Grammy awards.

Hard childhood

The future musician was born on March 20, 1976 in the city of Phoenix, located in American state Arizona. His father was a police officer who solved cases of child sexual abuse, and his mother was a nurse. Chester's passion for music began in early age; his first idols were Depeche Mode and Stone Temple Pilots.

The boy's parents divorced shortly after he turned 11 years old. Chester took this news very hard, began to appear at school less often and became interested in drugs. By a somewhat frightening coincidence, Bennington's story largely repeats the biography of musician Chris Cornell, his close friend, who was also worried about his parents’ divorce and became addicted to cocaine, and in 2017 he hanged himself.

Studying in a regular high school(first in Phoenix, then in Washington, where he and his mother moved after the divorce), Chester abused marijuana, alcohol and LSD. Being thin and strange, according to his teenage peers, he was often subjected to physical violence: “They beat me like rag doll, because I was skinny and different from others.”

In one of his interviews, the musician admitted that at the age of 7 he was raped by a friend who was several years older than him. This continued until he was 13. Chester didn't seek help because he was afraid of being called gay or, worse, not being believed. Later, he nevertheless revealed the name of the offender to his father, but insisted that he not make the matter public.

The tense atmosphere at home and constant bullying drove the young man crazy. He felt that a little more and he would kill someone and go on the run. To cope with his emotions, he began to draw and write poetry. Many of them later formed the basis for the songs of the world famous group.

When Bennington turned seventeen, his mother caught him using drugs and he left home. To pay rent for a new home, he got a job at a fast food restaurant, Burger King.

Passion for music. The Birth of Linkin Park

Despite his drug problems, Bennington never forgot his childhood dream of becoming a rock star. In 1993, he became the vocalist of the group Gray Daze, which after some time became quite popular in Phoenix. However, Bennington felt out of place and decided to leave the group in the late 90s due to creative differences.

In 1996, Chester moved to Los Angeles, where he joined the rock band Xero, founded by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson. Soon after Bennington became the band's main vocalist, the band was renamed Hybrid Theory. However, the aspiring musicians had problems with the band “Hybrid”, who accused them of plagiarism.

The evolution of Linkin Park (1996 – 2017)

It was Chester who came up with another name - “Lincoln Park” (in honor of the park of the same name in Santa Monica, which he often visited), but due to the fact that the corresponding domain was occupied, the group began to be called “Linkin Park”.

Worldwide popularity

After repeated rejections from various studios and the emergence of a fairly impressive fan base, the Linkin Park musicians still managed to sign a contract with Warner Bros and release their debut album, Hybrid Theory, in 2000. It was a huge success and received the status of a multi-platinum record, as well as the title of the best-selling debut album of the decade.

The group's unique style, which combined rock, rap and electronic music, made Linkin Park one of the most popular bands of the beginning of the new millennium. Chester Bennington's shrill vocals became business card groups.

Linkin Park – Numb

Outside of Linkin Park, Bennington worked on the side project Dead by Sunrise (formed in 2005) with musicians Amir Derakh and Ryan Shuck. The band's first album, Out Of Ashes, was released in 2009.

In 2013, the vocalist left the band Stone Temple Pilots, of which Chester had been a fan since childhood. The musicians invited Bennington to take his place. He performed with his idols for six months, performing their old songs in his signature style. He also participated in the recording of their new album “High Rise”.

Chester Bennington in movies

In 2006, the musician appeared with a cameo (playing himself) in the film “Adrenaline” with Jason Statham, and in 2009 - in its sequel. In the first part he played a pharmacy visitor, in the second he can be seen among the spectators at the hippodrome.

"Adrenalin". Scene with Chester Bennington

In the horror film Saw 3D (2010), he played the unlucky racist Evan, who, along with his friend and girlfriend, died at a scrap metal dump.

Personal life of Chester Bennington

From 1994 to 1995, Chester Bennington, yesterday's high school student, dated a girl named Yelka Brand. After the breakup, she gave birth to a son, Jamie (born 1996), from the musician. In 2006 he adopted her youngest son Isaiah.

In October 1996, he married Samantha Olite. This was that ill-fated period when Chester worked at Burger King and lived on meager pennies. The newlyweds had no money for wedding rings, and they had to tattoo them on their ring fingers.

In the photo: Chester Bennington with his second wife, Talinda Bentley

In 2005, six months after the divorce, the musician got married to Talinda, who bore him three children: son Tyler (born in 2006) and twins Lily and Lila (born in 2011).

Although the musician overcame drug addiction, one addiction was replaced by another - he began to abuse alcohol. He quit in 2011, saying he couldn't stand the person he had become.

Death of Chester Bennington

On July 20, 2017, it became known that Chester Bennington hanged himself on the 53rd birthday of his friend Chris Cornell, lead singer of Soundgarden, who committed suicide two months earlier. Chester was found at his home in Los Angeles. “This is shocking, heartbreaking, but true,” Mike Shinoda tweeted. Nine days later, the musician was buried in California, in the South Coast Botanic Garden.

After the death of a musician, it is customary to talk about his role in culture. However, everything is different in the case of Chester Bennington, whose legacy turned out to be more valuable, necessary and important not for abstract culture, but for many specific people around.

Everyone who grew up in the early 2000s should have memories associated with Linkin Park and Bennington: how they saw a strange video with robots on MTV, how they danced with a girl to “My December,” how they yearned to “Breaking the Habit,” how they shook their heads furiously under "From the Inside". Whether you were a fan of punk rock or rap, an excellent student or a raver from the back alley, they still overtook you and stayed with you forever.

The first six notes of “Numb”, the line “It starts with…” at the beginning of “In the End”, the drawn-out “Take everything” before the explosive climax of “From the Inside” - you can’t just part with this, it’s already in your head forever. It’s like Lagutenko’s drawn-out “flow away” or the opening chords to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” - moments of catharsis and shock that shaped the consciousness of thousands and thousands.

"Breaking the Habit"

How not to throw out the fact that Bennington’s songs helped these same thousands survive some particularly unpleasant moments in life. Hero of Linkin Park songs with his eternal struggle with himself, his demons and addictions, internal strife, difficult memories, he turned out to be someone with whom every second person could associate himself. When you are 14 years old, you are restless and everything seems to be against you, you need to rely on something. The first two Linkin Park albums became such a pillar for many: it’s amazing how different people on Thursday evening they admitted that it was to those songs that their youth passed; how many people, only because of Bennington, decided to play music themselves, rose to their feet in a dreary time, how many people writing about music began to be interested in it after the “Numb” video on MTV - even if only a quarter of this stream of memories is true, it’s still surprising.

Interestingly, several people said yesterday: “When you listened to them, you felt cool.” Linkin Park for many turned out to be an alternative to factory pop culture and glamorized rap. Over time, many began to feel ashamed of this coolness - so Linkin Park gradually turned into a guilty pleasure, a group for non-public consumption.

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Chester Bennington sings at Chris Cornell's farewell ceremony

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By the time the band's second and main album, Meteora, was released, nu metal and heavy alternative had become a laughing stock with Fred Durst at the helm. Linkin Park extended the life of a dying genre. They succeeded because they were trying to avoid the stereotypes of the style to which they were attributed. Instead of an obscene roar - subtle lyrics and grasping melodies, instead of preoccupied masculine maximalism - sincere soul-searching, instead of a lax and deliberately dirty sound - filigree production. But the main thing is the voice: sometimes vulnerable with a slight hoarseness, sometimes heart-rending and hysterical. Bennington's vocals are either a prayer or the cry of a confused man. He sang about the hatred of others, personal troubles, alcohol and drug addiction, the desire to find oneself and calm down.

While Chester Bennington sang songs that a whole generation grew up with, he didn't become an icon like Kurt Cobain or a dark genius like Thom Yorke. He was perceived as another good rock singer. Although he has been playing and singing for 14 years in a completely different way and can do it in different ways. He replaced Scott Wayland, who was expelled from there, in Stone Temple Pilots. He sang with Santana and Ray Manzarek. After all, he had solo project Dead by Sunrise is not the most agile, but not uninteresting alt-rock. His main band hasn't played nu-metal for a long time. The current Linkin Park composes topical pop music in the company of Stormzy and Pusha T - and now they are accused of being lightweight. Bennington was very worried and reacted sharply to criticism of the last album.

Many could envy the fate of Chester Bennington, but in vain. He was a successful performer with tens of millions of albums sold, his songs raised and saved a lot of people - but many of these songs were then embarrassed, and their albums were out loud last years only criticized. He helped others cope with troubles, but he himself desperately and not always successfully struggled with his failures: a bunch of concert injuries, poor eyesight, illness, addiction - all this haunted Bennington constantly. At the same time, he could, having fallen on stage and received a fracture, continue to sing - this was also overcoming, victory over himself. But, as it turned out, while saving others, he could not save himself.

Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington perform the song "Hunger Strike". It was originally recorded by Cornell and the leader of another grunge group, Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder and dedicated to the memory of Andrew Wood, a member of the alternative group from Seattle Mother Love Bone, who died of an overdose

Bennington was friends with Soundgarden's Chris Cornell. Together they performed “Hunger Strike” in memory of Mother Love Bone's Andrew Wood - Bennington sang instead of Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, but did not look like a newcomer who was called to sing with big guys. Cornell was friends with Wood, and Bennington had a very close relationship with Cornell himself - among other things, he was godfather his children. In May, when Chris committed suicide, Bennington sang Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" at his funeral. “You constantly inspired me without even realizing it,” he wrote in an open letter at the time.

On July 20, Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington passed away. According to media reports, he hanged himself. The musician was 41 years old.

We recall facts from the life of a musician.

1. Chester Bennington was born on March 20, 1976 in the family of a police officer and a nurse.

When he was 11 years old, his parents divorced and the boy stayed with his father. Divorce of parents and separation from mother had a negative impact on the child’s mental state.

2. By the age of 16, he already had a serious addiction to alcohol and drugs.

In the end, the craving for drugs was overcome. As for addiction to alcohol, periodic breakdowns occurred throughout the musician’s career.

3. Was sexually abused by an older friend for 8 years (from 7 to 13).

This greatly affected the musician’s psyche: according to him, he wanted to run away and kill. Perhaps this is where the drug problems come from. In addition, trying to forget himself, Chester drew a lot and wrote poetry.




4. At the beginning of his career, Chester Bennington was so unsettled and poor that he couldn’t even buy wedding rings for his own wedding.

He and his fiancee found an original way out of the situation: they simply got tattoos in the form of rings on their ring fingers.



5. And at the age of 23 he suddenly became a millionaire.

He met producer Jeff Blue, who brought him to promising group Xero. Later, on Chester’s initiative, the group was renamed Linkin Park. The first album recorded by the guys became multi-platinum. Chester Bennington turned from an almost penniless Burger King worker into a superstar and the favorite of millions.




6. Bennington's second wife, Talinda Ann Bentley, is a former Playboy model.



7. Bennington left behind six children ranging from 6 to 15 years old: four natural and two adopted.




8. Was a fan of tattoos.

He had over 14 tattoos all over his body, including a green dragon, a Japanese carp, Pisces (his zodiac sign), a pirate skull, flames, the initials of all his children, etc. The name of his band was tattooed on his lower back: he had a bet with a friend that if the band's first album goes platinum, then Linkin Park's lyrics will be written on it for free. And so it happened; the tattoo artist didn't charge him a cent for his work. Subsequently, Chester became a co-owner of a chain of tattoo parlors.




9. I loved to dress well.

He had a large room filled with clothes. There were hundreds of T-shirts, various belts and pairs of shoes.

10. Like many creative people, he was left-handed.

However, he played the guitar right hand.




11. Chester hanged himself on the 53rd birthday of another famous rock musician, Chris Cornell, who committed suicide in May of this year.

Chester and Chris were bosom friends. Chester even became godfather to one of Cornell's children.