Popular U.S. singer commits suicide

Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, who overcame a troubled childhood to top the charts with an angry but melodic brand of metal, was found dead Thursday in an apparent suicide. He was 41.

“Shocked and heartbroken, but it’s true,” Linkin Park’s guitarist and main songwriter Mike Shinoda wrote on Twitter.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office said it received a call just after 9 am (1600 GMT) that Bennington had been found hanging at his home in the luxurious Palos Verdes Estate area.

“It is being handled as a possible suicide,” said Brian Elias, chief of operations at the county coroner’s office.

Bennington had opened up in recent years about his troubled childhood in Arizona. He said he suffered years of sexual abuse from a family friend and turned to alcohol and hard drugs after his parents divorced when he was 11.