Scott Weiland’s family pens candid letter: ‘Don’t glorify this tragedy’
Scott Weiland, former frontman for the Stone Temple Pilots, is shown in 2008. The rocker was found dead Thursday while on tour with his new band, the Wildabouts, in Minnesota.
As Scott Weiland’s final days are being pieced together, his ex-wife, Mary Forsberg Weiland, penned an open letter for Rolling Stone with help from the two teenage children -- Noah, 15, and Lucy, 13 -- she had with the performer.
With eulogies continuing to arrive in the wake of Weiland’s death, the ex-wife of the former Stone Temple Pilots lead singer is providing a glimpse of the tough reality of the rock star’s long struggles with addiction.
Although the official cause of death for the 48-year-old rocker has yet to be established, police reported finding cocaine in his tour bus, where he was found dead Thursday before a show in Minnesota.
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A member of his band, the Wildabouts, was arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance that police identified as cocaine. In a sad twist, in March, the band’s guitarist, Jeremy Brown, died from multiple-drug intoxication the day before the group released its debut album, “Blaster.”
The letter is a poignant reminder that beyond the headlines of a rock star flying off the rails, Weiland was a father stricken by addiction, and although he ultimately lost his life to his disease -- his children lost him long ago.
“We don’t want to downplay Scott’s amazing talent, presence or his ability to light up any stage with brilliant electricity. So many people have been gracious enough to praise his gift. The music is here to stay. But at some point, someone needs to step up and point out that, yes, this will happen again -- because as a society we almost encourage it,” the letter reads. “We read awful show reviews, watch videos of artists falling down, unable to recall their lyrics streaming on a teleprompter just a few feet away. And then we click “add to cart” because what actually belongs in a hospital is now considered art.”
The letter painstakingly details Mary’s efforts to try to help Weiland after they split, sobering him up enough to drop him into the audience at their kids’ talent shows and musicals.
“Those short encounters were my attempts at giving the kids a feeling of normalcy with their dad. But anything longer would often turn into something scary and uncomfortable for them,” she wrote, revealing that it pained her to gloss over so much grief and struggle when writing her 2009 memoir, “Fall to Pieces.”
There is also the stinging revelation that when Weiland remarried, “the children were replaced,” not being invited to his wedding or ever setting foot into his house. The letter ends with a plea to mourn Weiland, the person, and not memorialize the scandal-plagued rock star.
“Let’s choose to make this the first time we don’t glorify this tragedy with talk of rock and roll and the demons that, by the way, don’t have to come with it. Skip the depressing T-shirt with 1967-2015 on it -- use the money to take a kid to a ballgame or out for ice cream.”
For more music news follow me on Twitter: @gerrickkennedy
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