Chester Bennington

On July 20, 2017, Chester Bennington died at the age of 41 by suicide from hanging.

What Happened?
On July 20, 2017, Bennington was found unresponsive and unconscious at his home in Palos Verdes Estates, California; his housekeeper discovered him at around 9:00 a.m. PDT. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on the spot. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging. Mike Shinoda confirmed his death on Twitter, writing, "Shocked and heartbroken, but it's true. An official statement will come out as soon as we have one". On July 21, Brian Elias, the chief of operations for the office of the medical examiner-coroner, confirmed that a half-empty bottle of alcohol was found at the scene, but no other drugs were present. The band announced that they had canceled the North American leg of their One More Light Tour following Bennington's death and that tickets would be refunded.

Bennington's funeral was held at South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes, California, on July 29. In addition to his family members and close friends, many musicians who toured or played with Linkin Park were also in attendance. The service also included a full stage for musical tributes. Bennington was cremated.

On December 5, 2017, Billboard magazine wrote that Bennington's toxicology report showed "a trace amount" of alcohol in the singer's system at the time of death.

Aftermath
Bennington filmed an episode of Carpool Karaoke six days before his death. Bennington's family allowed the episode to be aired on October 12, 2017. On August 27, during the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards ceremony, Jared Leto received media attention for his tribute to Bennington and Chris Cornell. Some of his former bandmates from Dead by Sunrise and Grey Daze united to perform a tribute for Bennington during a concert on September 2 in Las Vegas. Linkin Park also hosted a public tribute for Bennington in Los Angeles on October 27, titled Linkin Park and Friends: Celebrate Life in Honor of Chester Bennington. The event featured the band's first performance following his death, along with performances from Blink-182, members of System of a Down, Korn, Avenged Sevenfold, Bring Me the Horizon and Yellowcard, and the singer Kiiara, among others.

Rapper Jay-Z paid tribute to Bennington on several occasions by performing "Numb/Encore" live. Jay-Z and Bennington (with Linkin Park) collaborated on the song. Coldplay's Chris Martin paid tribute to Bennington during the band's North American tour concert at MetLife Stadium, playing an acoustic version of "Crawling" on piano. Several other artists, including Ryan Key, rapper Machine Gun Kelly, Imagine Dragons and Godsmack, also either covered Linkin Park songs (usually "Crawling") or played their own songs during concerts as tribute to Bennington in the days and months following his death. During the 60th Annual Grammy Awards's annual in memoriam tribute, rapper Logic performed the song "1-800-273-8255" live alongside Alessia Cara and Khalid as a tribute to both Cornell and Bennington. The song's title is the phone number of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.