Updated 11.06 pm
CHESTER BENNINGTON, THE lead singer of rock band Linkin Park, has died.
Celebrity news site TMZ is reporting that the 41-year-old was found dead at his own home in Los Angeles.
The death has been confirmed by the county coroner, according to the Associated Press.
Coroner spokesman Brian Elias said authorities are investigating Bennington’s death as an apparent suicide at Palos Verdes Estates, but no additional details are available.
Bennington was married and had six children.
Band co-founder and producer Mike Shinoda said on Twitter he was “shocked and saddened.”
“Chester Bennington was an artist of extraordinary talent and charisma, and a human being with a huge heart and a caring soul. Our thoughts and prayers are with his beautiful family, his band-mates and his many friends,” Warner Bros. Records CEO and Chairman Cameron Stang said in a statement.
When he got his big break in 1999, Bennington was an assistant at a digital-services firm in Phoenix. Arizona.
A music executive sent him a demo from the band Xero, which needed a lead singer.
Bennington wrote and recorded new vocals over the band’s playing and sent the results back. He soon got the gig and the band then changed its named to Hybrid Theory, then Linkin Park.
Linkin Park sold over 70 million albums worldwide including two which reached number one in Ireland: 2003′s Meteora and 2007′s Minutes to Midnight.
- With reporting by Associated Press
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