A HOST OF celebrities turned out in Los Angeles yesterday for a private funeral service for grunge rock icon Chris Cornell, who was found dead in his hotel room last week.
Among those who gathered at Hollywood Forever Cemetery to pay their respects as the singer’s ashes were buried were actors Brad Pitt and Josh Brolin, singer Pharrell Williams and Elvis Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie Presley.
Billboard.com said the service included eulogies by guitarist Tom Morello and Brolin.
Cornell, one of the most recognisable voices of Seattle’s grunge scene, was found in his hotel room in Detroit on 18 May shortly after he finished a show with his main band Soundgarden.
The coroner’s office has ruled the death a suicide but his wife said the 52-year-old may have overdosed on anti-anxiety medication.
The singer’s attorney Kirk Pasich said fans would be allowed to visit his grave yesterday afternoon following the funeral service.
Cornell is survived by his wife of 13 years Vicky and their two teenage children, a boy and a girl.
He is also survived by another child from a previous marriage.
Cornell, who had a vocal range of nearly four octaves, was one of the most versatile singers in grunge, the subgenre that blended the rough edges of punk with dark introspection.
His death closed another chapter in the Seattle-based grunge scene. Kurt Cobain, who defined grunge with his band Nirvana, died in 1994 and Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland died on a tour bus in 2015 from a drug overdose.
His widow Vicky, a Greek music publicist whom he met when she was working in Paris, wrote a moving tribute to her late husband this week in which she expressed her heartbreak.
“You were the best father, husband and son-in-law,” she said in the letter published by Billboard.com. “Your patience, empathy and love always showed through.”
“We had the time of our lives in the last decade and I’m sorry, my sweet love, that I did not see what happened to you that night,” she added.
I’m sorry you were alone, and I know that was not you, my sweet Christopher. Your children know that too, so you can rest in peace.
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