Chester Bennington’s last interview: “I can either just give up and f**king die or I can fight”

Chester Bennington‘s last interview offers some insight into the Linkin Park frontman’s relationship with depression.

Bennington, husband and also father of six, was found dead in his home, outside of Los Angeles, at around 9 a.m., on Thursday. He was only 41 and had just come back from a holiday with his wife of 12 years Talinda Ann Bentley. Mirror Online managed to obtain the late singer’s last interview, in which he talks about death and his depression.

“I came to a point in my life where I was like, ‘I can either just give up and fucking die or I can fucking fight for what I want.’,” he said, when speaking to Will Lavin. “And I chose to fight for what I wanted. I wanted to have good relationships. I wanted to love the people in my life. I wanted to enjoy my job. I wanted to enjoy being a dad and having friends and just getting up in the morning. Because that was a struggle for me.”

The singer’s death came as a shock, given that he appeared to have made quite an effort to fight his demons and concentrate on his loved ones and his career. The former frontman of Linkin Park talked about how the band’s latest album helped him to come out of the “darkest time” of his life, saying that it was the moment he “chose to fight for what I wanted”: “For me personally when we first started working on this record I was coming out of the darkest time of my life and it was all s**t that I was doing to myself. It was all stuff that I had control over but even though I felt differently at the time.”

“It’s hard. You know?”, Bennington added. “Instinctively I want to make the river flow where I want it to flow and I want to make the water be calm when I want it to be calm. It takes a lot of patience to just let things happen as they’re happening and just ride it out. And I feel like that’s where I’m at in life right now. I’m just going to focus on what’s going on right now and make the best of the situation no matter what it is. I’m not going to question it or analyse it in any way because that’s me going back to my old behaviour where I was trying to control everything.”

Speaking candidly about the emptiness he felt, the singer said that he felt as if “the world was full of s**t and everybody I knew was full of s**t and life sucks and I was like ‘F***k it.’” Nonetheless, he added that opening up about his personal struggle helped him focus on what was important. Furthermore, he reported that entering therapy had also aided him. “It was all really things I could work on if I chose to, and make myself happy,” he said. “For me it took a lot of work. It actually took me opening up and talking to my friends about it and writing about it, and like going to therapy and battling my demons.” Bennington revealed that his wife, Talinda, his six children, his band and friends helped him to find the strength to battle his demons.