In one of her last interviews with ET, Mindy McCready talked about her tendencies toward suicidal thoughts, and she opened up about her first three suicide attempts.
McCready was found dead Sunday on the front porch of her home in Heber Springs, Arkansas. All reports indicate that the singer died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and reports surfacing Tuesday indicate that McCready also shot one of her three dogs.
During the interview, which was recorded in 2010, McCready blamed her suicidal thoughts on an ex-boyfriend and medications she was taking at the time.
“It was really the relationship that I was in with the father of my son. I got caught up in this whirlwind of trying to save him from himself and lost me in the process,” McCready said during the interview. “Then my self-esteem was gone. Here I was in love with this man and trying to do everything I could to save his life, and nobody cared about mine.”
At the time of the interview, McCready had one son with Billy McKnight, according to TODAY. In 2011, she had another son with then-boyfriend David Wilson. Wilson also allegedly committed suicide earlier this year.
During the 2010 ET interview, McCready went on to add: “I didn’t know why I was acting the way I was. I was going to doctors and they were putting me on medication, and one of the biggest side effects to the medications was that it causes suicidal thoughts. And after all the doctors that I’d seen … (I was) still on this medication, and that’s the main side effect of it. Nobody suggested for me to be off of it.”
At the time of the interview, McCready was not on any medication, she said.
McCready’s country music career began in 1996 with a double-platinum album (“Ten Thousand Angels”) and a No. 1 single (“Guys Do It All the Time”). McCready would never have another No. 1 hit single.
Throughout her career, the 37-year-old singer struggled with drug and alcohol abuse problems, was arrested multiple times, and found herself in the middle of a custody battle with her mother. Recent reports indicated that McCready’s sons have been placed in foster care.
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