LINKIN PARK Singer Opens Up About Alcoholism, Childhood Abuse

July 15, 2011

According to The Pulse Of Radio, LINKIN PARK singer Chester Bennington has opened up in a new interview with England's Kerrang! magazine about his past alcoholism and the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. Bennington said that he used to be a "full-blown, raging alcoholic," adding, "I don't drink. I choose to be sober now. I have drunk over the last six years, but I just don't want to be that person anymore."

Bennington told The Pulse Of Radio not long ago that his addiction to alcohol reached its peak after a divorce from his first wife left him emotionally and financially drained. "I lived on alcohol," he said. "It was either beer, or Jack and Coke, or Jack Daniels in a pint glass with ice. And then it got to the point where my wife said to me about seven months after we got together, she goes, 'I don't think there's been a day since I've known you that you haven't drank.' And I was like, 'What are you talking about? That's crazy' as I'm drinking a Jack and Coke. That was where my life went."

The vocalist also spoke with Kerrang! about the sexual abuse he went through at the age of seven at the hands of an older male friend. He said, "If I think back to when I was really young, to when I was being molested, to when all these horrible things were going on around me, I shudder."

LINKIN PARK has been on the road in support of last year's "A Thousand Suns" album, but the group and producer Rick Rubin both recently revealed that work has already begun on their fifth studio effort.

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