Taylor Momsen shares Chris Cornell grief on his daughter Lily's podcast
The Pretty Reckless singer Taylor Momsen has revisited one of the biggest lows of her life - the suicide of Soundgarden rocker Chris Cornell - for his daughter's mental health-focused podcast.
The actress-turned-rocker joined Lily Cornell Silver on the latest episode of her hit IGTV and audio series, Mind Wide Open, to talk about the grief she experienced following the death of the host's dad in 2017.
Former Gossip Girl star Momsen's band Pretty Reckless were supporting Soundgarden on tour when Chris took his own life in a hotel room after a show, and she admitted she really struggled to address her own dark spiral from the "highest of highs" to two huge personal losses - the deaths of her tour mate and then a close producer pal.
"It's a little bizarre to speak to you, because it started with your father, losing him," Momsen confessed.
"We were opening for Soundgarden, which to me was the highest of highs. Respect is not the right word; I love your father, I love their music, I love Soundgarden so much, to my core that I still don't know how to put it into words. To be on that tour, opening for them, was just the most incredible honour and experience of my life. Obviously, it ended tragically..." she mourned.
Less than a year later, Momsen received more terrible news - her best friend Kato Khandwala, who she had turned to for support in the wake of the tour tragedy, was killed in a motorbike accident.
"I was starting to write music and had a couple of songs that I was really proud of," she recalled, sharing: "I was calling our producer Kato, who is much more than just our producer; he was my best friend in the entire world... There would be no The Pretty Reckless if I had never met Kato..."
The loss of her pal sent Momsen into a dark spell.
"As soon as we started to put plans (for the new music) in motion, I got the call that Kato had died in a motorcycle accident. That was the nail in the coffin for me, where I just spiralled downward so quickly into depression and this dark hole with no light that I didn't see a way out of," she admitted.
The Pretty Reckless star is now relieved she was able to "put one foot in front of the other" and move past her pain.
"If you're standing on a frozen lake, and you're on one side and have to get to the other side, it's going to seem like an impossible task," she said. "If you just look down and just put one foot in front of the other foot, pretty soon you're going to turn around and be closer to the other side, than the side you started from, and that's living," she reflected.
