CHESTER BENNINGTON's Widow Says There Were Warning Signs Before His Suicide

Chester Bennington's widow has told CNN that there were warning signs in the days before the LINKIN PARK singer took his own life last July.

"I am now more educated about those signs, but they were definitely there: the hopelessness, the change of behavior, isolation," Talinda Bennington said during an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper as part of the CNN Town Hall, "Finding Hope: Battling America's Suicide Crisis" (see video below).

"That was all part of our daily life," she said. "Sometimes, some signs were there more than others. Sometimes, they weren't there at all."

According to Talinda, Chester "was [at] his best" the night before he committed suicide at the couple's at his home in Palo Verdes Estates, California.

"We were on a family vacation, and he decided to go back home to do a television commercial," she recalled. "This was not a time where we or any of our family suspected this to happen, which is terrifying... We thought everything was okay."

Bennington's friends told Rolling Stone that he fell off the wagon for three days in August 2016 and drank until he blacked out, adding that he had been consuming alcohol again as recently as October 2016. Bennington's longtime friend Ryan Shuck, who played with the singer in DEAD BY SUNRISE, thought Bennington may have had "a couple of drinks" before hanging himself on July 20, 2017.

Chester was found dead on what would have been the 53rd birthday of his late friend and fellow rocker, SOUNDGARDEN frontman Chris Cornell.

After Cornell died in May 2017 as a result of suicide by hanging himself inside his Detroit hotel room, Chester wrote a letter thanking him for inspiring him and hoping he would find peace in "the next life."

Bennington had been open with the press and public about his struggles with drugs and alcohol, which landed him in rehab twice around 2006.

Investigators found no illegal drugs or prescription drugs while searching Bennington's home following his passing, although a partially consumed bottle of alcohol was found in the bedroom where the 41-year-old singer’s body was discovered.

LINKIN PARK paid tribute to Bennington in October with an emotional three-hour show that featured numerous guests joining the band onstage in Los Angeles.

LINKIN PARK released a concert album titled "One More Light Live" in December.