Linkin Park fans are reeling over the news that frontman, Chester Bennington, was found dead in his Los Angeles home. Sadly, it’s being reported that the 41-year-old hanged himself and was discovered by an employee.

As a result, authorities are treating this as a suicide as the investigation continues. The tragic scene began to unfold around 9am on Thursday morning when officer responded to an emergency call in Palo Verdes Estates, California and details continue to emerge.

In the meantime, band mate, Mike Shinoda, took to Twitter to confirm the news and said, “shocked and heartbroken, but it’s true. An official statement will come out as soon as we have one.”

In a strange and sad twist, today would have been Chris Cornell’s 53rd birthday. The Soundgarden lead singer also committed suicide by hanging in May and the pair were, reportedly, very close. So close, in fact, that Bennington spoke at Cornell’s funeral. Can this type of situation even be adequately explained or understood? Wow.

It was a tough life for Bennington. He was 11 years old when his parents divorced and he went to live with his father. Despite the fact that his dad was a detective specializing in child sexual abuse cases, Bennington didn’t reveal that he had, himself, been a victim beginning at just 7 years old when an older male friend assaulted him.

Back in 2008, he told Kernaq, “it escalated from a touchy, curious, ‘what does this thing do’ into full-on, crazy violations. I was getting beaten up and being forced to do things I didn’t want to do. It destroyed my self-confidence. Like most people, I was too afraid to say anything. I didn’t want people to think I was gay or that I was lying. It was a horrible experience. The sexual assaults continued until I was 13.” After learning that his abuser had also been a victim, he chose not to pursue the case because he “didn’t need revenge.”

That wasn’t the only source of Bennington’s childhood suffering. In his teens, he was “knocked around like a rag doll at school for being skinny and looking different.” He started drinking and using marijuana, opium, cocaine, meth, and LSD. He was sent to live with his mother who, basically, confined him to the house in an attempt to control his addictions.

After some failed attempts, he finally found an outlet for his pain – music. In 1999, he joined up with Shinoda, Brad Delson, Rob Bourdon, and Joe Hahn to form the group, Linkin Park (named in honor of Santa Monica’s Lincoln Park).