Chester Bennington (View : 668)

Chester Charles Bennington is an American musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the lead vocalist and songwriter in the rock band Linkin Park. Bennington rose to fame with his first release with Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory, in 2000, which was a massive commercial success. The album was certified Diamond by the RIAA in 2005, making it the best-selling debut album of the decade. Linkin Park's following studio albums, Meteora and Minutes to Midnight, released in 2003 and 2007 respectively, continued the band's success. Bennington formed his own band, Dead By Sunrise as a side-project in 2005. The band's debut album, Out of Ashes was released on October 13, 2009.

In 2007, Bennington was placed at #46 on Hit Parader's list of "Heavy Metal's All-Time Top 100 Vocalists".

Bennington was born in Phoenix, Arizona. He took interest in music at a young age, citing Depeche Mode and Stone Temple Pilots as early inspirations. Bennington's parents separated in the late 1980s. He later struggled with cocaine and methamphetamine addictions. Bennington eventually overcame his drug addiction, and would go on to denounce drug use in future interviews. He worked at a Burger King restaurant before starting his career as a professional musician.

Before joining Linkin Park, Bennington was a vocalist in Grey Daze, a post-grunge band from Phoenix, Arizona. He left Grey Daze in 1998, but struggled to find another band to play in. After nearly quitting his musical career altogether, Jeff Blue, the vice president of A&R at Zomba Music in Los Angeles, offered Bennington an audition with the future members of Linkin Park. Bennington quit his day job, and took his family to California, where he had a successful audition with Linkin Park, who were then called "Xero". Bennington and Mike Shinoda, the band's other vocalist, made significant progress together, but failed to find a record deal. After facing numerous rejections, Jeff Blue, now a vice president of A&R at Warner Bros., intervened again to help the band sign with Warner Bros. Records.

Personal life
Bennington married his first wife, Samantha, on October 31, 1996. They had one child, named Draven Sebastian, who was born on April 19, 2002. Bennington's relationship with his first wife declined during his years with Linkin Park, leading to their divorce in 2005. After divorcing his first wife, Bennington married Talinda Bentley, a former Playboy model, with whom he has had one child, Tyler Lee, and has two children from a previous relationship, Jamie and Isaiah. Bennington and his family live in a 6,000-square-foot (560 m2) house in Newport Beach Orange County when he is not on tour. He is also a tattoo enthusiast. Bennington has done work and promotions with Club Tattoo, a recognized tattoo parlor in Tempe, Arizona. Bennington and his second wife were harassed by a cyberstalker, Devon Townsend, for almost a year. Townsend was found guilty of tampering with the couple's email, as well as sending threatening messages, and was sentenced to two years in prison. Bennington also made a cameo in the 2006 film Crank as a customer in a pharmacy. He later appeared as a horsetrack spectator in the film's 2009 sequel, Crank: High Voltage.

Health
Despite having prodigious success in the early 2000s, Bennington has had medical issues outside of the limelight. He suffered a severe bite from a recluse spider while touring with the OzzFest in 2001. Bennington was plagued with poor health during the making of Meteora, and struggled to attend some of the album's recording sessions. He fell ill during the summer of 2003, and eventually underwent surgery. Bennington sustained a wrist injury in October 2007 while attempting to jump off a platform during a show in Melbourne, Australia at the Rod Laver Arena. Despite the injury, he continued to perform the entire show with a broken wrist, before heading to the emergency room. During a concert when Linkin Park performed Papercut, Chester jumped and his foot got stuck to the stairs on the stage where they performed, so when he jumped he fell and broke his wrist.