Chester Bennington And Chris Cornell Were Murdered, Conspiracy Theorists Claim

Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington and Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell both died the same way: suspected suicide by hanging. But some conspiracy theorists were not ready to accept that as fact and claimed their causes of death were murder. While the ruling on Bennington’s death has not been confirmed by a medical examiner, he was reportedly found dead by his housekeeper Thursday on what would have been Cornell’s 53rd birthday. The two were close friends and Cornell’s death had a severe impact on the Linkin Park singer.

When news of Cornell’s death went viral, Bennington was heartbroken. Linkin Park was slated to perform their new single, “Heavy.” The band decided to pay tribute to their friend and performed “One More Light,” which is a Linkin Park song about suicide.

READ: Linkin Park Responds On Facebook To Chester Bennington’s Suspected Suicide By Hanging

“We were booked to play the show so that we could promote our new single ‘Heavy’ and then we heard the news about Chris Cornell and had had a little pow-wow in the dressing room before we went on and we said, ya know, the things that good for the band to do is play ‘Heavy,’ but the right thing to do is play ‘One More Light’ because it’s about the loss of a friend,” bandmate Mike Shinoda told Radio.com days after Cornell’s death, according to Variety.

“When we were doing a sound check Chester couldn’t even make it through the song, he was getting halfway through and getting choked up. And even when we did play the whole song, and it was live on TV, or taped for film for TV, he kind of just stopped like towards the end like he missed the last couple lines, just couldn’t finish the song,” he added.

Shionda described the meaning of the song. “The message of the song is when you are dealing with something so deep as losing a friend, or in this case somebody you just admire, somebody you look up to when we’re talking about some of these fans in the audience… one of the things I think you can do is reach out to people and offer them community, let them know we’re a family, we’re community, we care about each other,” he said. “Whether a friend who lost somebody, a family member or whatever, to reach out and let them know even that you’re thinking about them, sometimes that’s enough.”

READ: Chester Bennington’s ‘Cowardly’ Death Leaves 6 Kids Alone, Korn Guitarist Says

Though there doesn’t appear to be foul play in Bennington’s death, and Cornell’s death was ruled a suicide, fans flocked to Twitter to speculate if the rockers were murdered. For some, it was too much of coincidence that Bennington died two months after his friend in the same manner — and on his birthday. Some of their posts have been shared below:

Follow me on Twitter @mariamzzarella