Country crooner Mindy McCready dies at 37
HEBER SPRINGS, Ark.Mindy McCready, who hit the top of the country charts before personal problems sidetracked her career, died Sunday. She was 37.
The Cleburne County Sheriff's office said in a statement that the singer was found dead on the front porch at a Heber Springs, Arkansas residence. She appeared to have died from a single self-inflicted gunshot wound.
- Mindy McCready committed to treatment facility
- Mindy McCready denies killing boyfriend David Wilson
- Mindy McCready's son to return to Florida
She arrived in Nashville in 1994 with tapes of her karaoke vocals and earned a recording contract with BNA Records.
Mindy McCready: 1975-2013
In 1996, her "Guys Do It All the Time" hit No. 1 and its dig at male chauvinism endeared her to females. Her other hits included "Ten Thousand Angels," also in 1996, and her album by that title sold 2 million copies.
However, personal problems plagued her beginning in 2004 and included a custody battle with her mother over one of her sons.
McCready took her older son Zander from her mother and the boy's legal guardian, Gayle Inge, in late 2011. She fled to Arkansas without permission over what she called child abuse fears. Authorities eventually found McCready hiding in a residence without permission and took the boy into custody.
She and her boyfriend David Wilson had a son, Zayne, in April of 2012. The older son has a different father.
In May 2010, she was hospitalized briefly after police responded to an overdose call at a home in North Fort Myers, Fla., owned by her mother. This followed a stint on "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew," where she delcared herself clean from drugs.
In 2004, she was charged with obtaining the painkiller OxyContin fraudulently at a pharmacy. She pleaded guilty and was placed on three years' probation.
She violated the probation with a drunken driving arrest in May 2005. Then she attempted suicide in July 2005, overdosed in September 2005 and slit her wrists again in December 2008.
Also that year, McCready was charged in Arizona with hindering prosecution and unlawful use of transportation. Those charges stemmed from an alleged attempt in June 2005 to purchase two high performance boats, but she claimed she was trying to stop a con man.
Growing up in Fort Myers, she took seven years of private vocal lessons and later sang in karaoke bars.
After getting her recording contract, she did concert appearances with top country stars including George Strait, Tim McGraw and Alan Jackson.
Her other singles included "Maybe He'll Notice Her Now," "A Girl's Gotta Do (What a Girl's Gotta Do)" and "You'll Never Know."
Popular in Entertainment
- Jennifer Aniston strips in "We're the Millers" trailer
- "Dancing with the Stars" season 16 finale 21 Photos
- CBS picks up "Bad Teacher" series for 2013-2014 season
- Watch: Jennifer Aniston has awkward "Friends" reunion
- "Now You See Me" cast talks magic at N.Y. premiere
- Kate wears sunny yellow for palace garden party
- Justin Bieber booed at 2013 Billboard Music Awards
- Beatles' lyrics headed for British Library
I do not agree with suicide. I feel it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but I have also had to experience 2 loved ones choosing suicide.
Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. Feel the pain, agony, and trauma, they feel prior to deciding on suicide. Drugs and alcohol sometimes is their only escape before deciding to take their own life.
I am not saying I agree with doing drugs or drinking. I am saying that people use these things as a means to get by. Yes, mental illness, drugs, and alcohol, are a deadly combination, but do not think for one minute that it is THE REASON Mindy is dead.
She may have had all the TREATMENT known to man, and in your eyes she chose PILLS over her children or life or whatever. But it takes a special person, and support system to get through to some people, and help them overcome their demons. She had not found that person yet.
So, remember this, before you open your mouth. Everyone does what they feel they need to do to get by in life. Everyone has personal demons, but NOT EVERYONE has the strength and willpower, or support system to overcome what they suffer from. Instead of saying mean and heartless things, why don't you get up and go out and try to be that Special Person, that many people need in their life, to overcome their demons.
I send prayers to her two boys, and to her family. I pray she is at peace now.
I feel sorry for her living in that hell.
These people never learn from the drug mistakes of others.
I also feel bad for her children who now have no mother and will have to grow-up with this hanging over their head.
Some times kids think it's their fault their parents went away and left them.
And you know this how? I could be mistaken, but only her first two CDs were any good. She had five altogether, I believe, and the last few were duds. After the second CD, I never really heard much from her, other than all this drama.
In the music business, it's a well known fact that money from the first couple of CDs just goes to paying off debt. You aren't really making anything. So, it is quite likely she had nothing. Especially if she was a drug addict. Any thing she had would probably have been taken up with that.
People always assume that after the first two CDs, the singers are RICH. Not so.