Country star Mindy McCready died of an apparent suicide on Sunday night, CNN reports. The singer was 37 and left behind two young children.
According to the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office, McCready was found dead in Heber Springs, Arkansas of a single, apparently self-inflected gunshot wound to the head. She was found on the same porch where her boyfriend, David Wilson, the father of her younger son, was discovered after another apparent suicide in January.
Mindy McCready Reportedly Committed To Rehab; Children Removed From Home
McCready, who had appeared on Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew in 2010, had attempted suicide before, and had been committed to rehab for alcohol and mental health issues after Wilson's death. "He was my life. We were each other's life," she told NBC's Dateline at the time. "I have never gone through anything this painful. He didn't just touch my heart, he touched my soul. He was my soulmate."
McCready arrived in Nashville as a teenager in the mid-1990s and scored her first Number One hit at the age of 20 with "Guys Do It All The Time" in 1996. She followed that success with the album Ten Thousand Angels, which sold 2 million copies, but soon became entangled in alcohol and drug problems. In 2004, she was arrested for fraudulently obtaining OxyContin, and was arrested the following year on a drunk driving charge. Several arrests, along with suicide attempts and drug overdoses followed.
As news of McCready's death spread on Sunday night, country music stars expressed condolences. "Mindy. Dear sweet girl. This is so sad," Wynonna Judd wrote on Twitter. "It just breaks my heart what addiction continues to take from this life."
