Celebrity Deaths That Changed Music History: Gone Too Soon

female singers that overdosed

At a Texas motel that same year, Selena confronted the woman, only to be shot in the back and killed at the age of 23. Despite being far removed from that scene now, as a 44-year-old mother of two, Pink still carries the weight of the tragedies she encountered during that time. Earlier this year, she released her ninth studio album, Trustfall, which she has taken on the road with the Summer Carnival tour. Each night, after running through “Get the Party Started” and “Raise Your Glass,” she performs “Who Knew,” a song written after the singer lost two friends to drug overdoses.

female singers that overdosed

How to Conquer Anxiety and Fears When Your World Feels Shaken

Explaining how she was also struggling with weight gain at the time, Lovato recalled being in a “deep depression” and feeling a “profound sadness.” “I had to learn it on my own,” she shared during her Sept. 11 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, revealing that she ended up “smoking so much weed and taking edibles, sometimes 300mg at a time” instead. “All I did was replace my addiction with something I thought was safer.” Tragically, both her musical and personal ambitions will never be truly fufilled. A recent breast enlargement and yet more erratic public appearances continued to fuel speculation that all was not well in Winehouse’s world, despite repeated claims by her management that she would soon be back on track and that she was writing new music. Winehouse’s life began to spiral out of control in 2005 when she met Blake Fielder-Civil, a music video assistant, in a north London pub.

  • “Tin foil remedy, almost got the best of me,” she sings, referring to smoking heroin.
  • Drug and alcohol availability and abuse is endemic to an industry where workers lead high-octane, peripatetic lives.
  • On May 31, 1959, Holiday was checked into the hospital due to complications from liver and heart disease.
  • James Brown changed the sound of popular music when he found the power of the one and unleashed the funk with “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.” Today, funk lives on in many forms, including these exciting bands from across the world.

Black Artists Who Died Too Young

female singers that overdosed

After the sudden death of Mac Miller, the rapper—born Shad Moss—took to Twitter to let his fans know that he’d once struggled with a cough syrup addiction. “To the youth- Stop with these dumb ass drugs,” he began his series of tweets. “We cant lose no more of you. Not one! I love all yall. The young artist all the kids around the world.. dont follow a trend. Break the cycle. PEACE.” In a time when Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan innovated their respective genres, Patsy Cline’s country fans loved her hypnotic voice. Sadly, the 30-year-old singer would pass away less than 18 months later in a plane crash 90 miles away.

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“My sort of addictions jump. They jump around. When I was younger, I definitely think female singers that overdosed I had a sex addiction of some kind, yes, that everything could be fixed by sex,” she said, before sharing about the time she realized she’d developed a troubling drinking problem. She said her friends at the time “kind of cosigned” her drug use and “it just kind of becomes this dark pit, bottomless pit.” But, during the pandemic, Cyrus said she was noticing challenges and felt she wasn’t emotionally present. “I was completely nodding off and falling asleep,” she recalled. “And unable to keep my head up or keep my eyes open, because I was so far gone.” “I would fake back injuries. I would fake migraine headaches. I had eight doctors going at the same time,” Perry said in a 2022 profile in The New York Times, marking 18 months of sobriety.

female singers that overdosed

Substance abuse and mental illness

Navy, the Oklahoma native chased his muse through music during his downtime, striking a chord with country music fans on stark songs led by his acoustic guitar and affecting vocals. They have racked up multiple GRAMMY nominations, in addition to one gold, one double platinum, and four platinum albums thanks to hits like “Cradle Of Love,” “Flesh For Fantasy,” and “Eyes Without A Face.” Today, funk lives in many places, with its heavy bass and syncopated grooves finding way into many nooks and crannies of music. There’s nu-disco and boogie funk, nodding back to disco bands with soaring vocals and dance floor-designed instrumentation. G-funk continues to influence Los Angeles hip-hop, with innovative artists like Dam-Funk and Channel Tres bringing the funk and G-funk, into electro territory. Funk and disco-centered ’70s revival is definitely having a moment, with acts like Ghost Funk Orchestra and Parcels, while its sparkly sprinklings can be heard in pop from Dua Lipa, Doja Cat, and, in full “Soul Train” character, Silk Sonic.

  • There will be a massive reaction if there’s not already one.
  • Cocaine is a powerful and addictive stimulant drug made from the leaves of the coca plant.
  • “Now I feel like I’ve been through enough s—. Now I feel like I can actually talk to y’all about something.”
  • Morris channeled the determination that drove her leap-of-faith move from Texas to Nashville for the playful clap-along “Circles Around This Town,” while Ballerini brought poppy hooks with a country edge on the infectiously upbeat “HEARTFIRST.”

But she rose to fame at an early age and that affected her both physically as well as mentally. Pressure to look better at any age, but especially when you’re a teen can twist a person up inside and studio execs upped that pressure constantly. Garland plunged into alcohol and substance abuse and ultimately overdosed on barbiturates at the age of 47. With punk going so mega in England, we definitely got a leg up.

With the dual releases of her fourth studio album No Shame and memoir My Thoughts Exactly, the singer spent much of 2018 getting brutally honest about the height of her addition problems. “A lot of people ask me, ‘Do you have any regrets in life?'” she said. Her death follows years of widely-publicised addiction to drugs and alcohol, which saw Winehouse fade from the height of her musical success and become more talked-about for her physical decline. Even the loud, the bold and the outrageous have to find ways of managing their vulnerabilities. Chrissie Amphlett invented a “theatrical persona” (fuelled by alcohol and drugs) for her edgy songs in order to overcome her performance nerves. Dandridge was a performer from a young age alongside her sister as part of a child act, The Wonder Children (later, The Dandridge Sisters).

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