Country music's Mindy McCready, 37, whose troubled life was played out in news and tabloid headlines over the years, committed suicide at her Arkansas home today, Feb. 17, according to a statement from the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office.
Per the statement, deputies were dispatched after receiving a report of shots fired Sunday afternoon, and once at the country star's home, they found McCready's body on the front porch, where she reportedly died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
McCready, who is survived by two sons, one of whom is 10 months old, has a long history of issues surrounding alcohol and mental health issues. According to a Feb. 15 report from the New York Daily News, McCready had checked herself into an inpatient rehab facility just two weeks ago following the mid-January suicide of her boyfriend, producer David Wilson, who is the father of her youngest son, Zayne.
The Daily News also repported that although Wilson's death was initially ruled a suicide, "the sheriff's office in Cleburne County, Ark., has an opened an investigation into it."
As country fans may recall, the blond songstress first found commercial success in the mid-1990s when, at 18, she moved to Nashville with only karaoke tapes to promote her career. Her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," sold two million copies and she charted at least a dozen songs on Billboard, including the former No. 1, "Guys Do It All the Time"
More recently, though, she made headlines for her own 2008 suicide attempt, legal battles with her mother and a tabloid-media company, a high-profile custody battle over her firstborn, son Zander (whose father is singer Billy McKnight), as well as a TV stint on "Celebrity Rehab 3" in 2010.
According to a Feb. 15 report from CNN, Dr. Drew Pinksy, an addiction expert and host of "Celebrity Rehab," said that he reached out to McCready after her late boyfriend's death and rehab check-in.
"When I heard she was struggling, I did reach out to her and urged her to go to take care of herself, get in a facility if she felt she needed," shared Pinsky, who also hosts his own program on CNN's sister network HLN.
"Her biggest fear was the stigma of doing so and what people would think if she, God forbid, took care of herself. And this to me is the most distressing part of this story. She is a lovely woman, we have lost her, and it didn't have to go down like this."
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