In a new interview with People Magazine, Chris Cornell’s wife Vicky has opened up about he thoughts regarding her husband’s death last month on May 18, following a Soundgarden concert in Detroit. “My Chris was happy, loving, caring and warm,” she said. “This was not a depressed man. It wasn’t like I missed that. What I missed were the signs of addiction.”
Though the coroner ruled Cornell’s death a suicide, Vicky doesn’t think it’s a simple as that. “He didn’t want to die,” she says. “If he was of sound mind, I know he wouldn’t have done this.” The singer, who battled with drug and alcohol addictions at various points throughout his life, had been sober going back to 2009 according to his wife. Some time last year, he had been prescribed the drug Atvian to help him go to sleep, but lately it hadn’t been as effective. “That was a sign something was off,” Vicky said.
On the night that Chris died, he woke up his wife by remotely turning on the lights in their home from his hotel room. Vicky called him and “He was on a rant,” she said. “I said, ‘You need to tell me what you took,’ and he just got mean. That wasn’t my Chris.” Shortly after that alarming call, she reached out to Chris’s bodyguard who eventually busted down the door to the singer’s hotel room, but he was already gone.
“Addiction is a disease,” Vicky said. “I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure other children don’t have to cry like mine have cried.”
