Scott Weiland‘s ex-wife Mary Forsberg Weiland has penned a heartbreaking obituary in Rolling Stone magazine on behalf of their two kids, Noah (15) and Lucy (13). The letter addresses his life, his death, the public misconception of the ‘rock n roll’ lifestyle, and Scott as a father.
Scott died of cardiac arrest last Thursday night at the age of 48. He became one of the most recognisable characters in American hard rock and shot to fame in the 1990s as lead singer of the Stone Temple Pilots, before achieving a blaze of notoriety by joining former members of Guns N’ Roses in the supergroup Velvet Revolver in 2003.
Mary’s letter expresses just how disappointed she is with society’s encouragement of musicians’ downward spiraling lifestyles, saying: “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. 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.”
“Many of these artists have children. Children with tears in their eyes, experiencing panic because their cries go unheard.” Mary continued that fans were ignoring the obvious cries for help and that the media played Scott as a ‘drug free’ man who ‘loved spending time with his children,’ despite only being photographed with them a handful of times in 15 years.
Mary has done her best to shield her children from their father’s problems, acknowledging that one day, “they’d eventually be brave enough to say, ‘That mess was our father. We loved him, but a deep-rooted mix of love and disappointment made up the majority of our relationship with him.’”
In the second half of the letter Mary discusses Scott’s relationship with his kids. “Even after Scott and I split up,” she says, “I spent countless hours trying to calm his paranoid fits, pushing him into the shower and filling him with coffee, just so that I could drop him into the audience at Noah’s talent show, or Lucy’s musical. Those short encounters were my attempts at giving the kids a feeling of normalcy with their dad.”
The letter is very emotional and brings up a lot of social issues that are ignored by the majority of music listeners. The comments at the bottom of the article proves this in strides.
It is always sad to lose such an iconic musician, and it is very hard to look past the vast catalogue of phenomenal hits Scott has had with his various bands, but Mary’s letter shows that we need to stop ‘
“Our hope for Scott has died, but there is still hope for others. 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.”
The full letter can be read here.