I was deeply saddened to hear about the death of Mindy McCready this weekend.
On Feb. 17, McCready committed suicide, turning a gun on herself on her front porch weeks after the father of her second child, David Wilson, also committed suicide in the home.
I wasn’t a big fan…not because I didn’t like her voice, but simply because I was not very familiar with her music. What initially caught my attention were the headlines. MCCREADY’S BOYFRIEND ARRESTED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER FOLLOWING ATTACK ON COUNTRY SINGER. COUNTRY STAR OVERDOSE. MCCREADY AFFAIR WITH BASEBALL GREAT. POLICE ON LOOKOUT FOR COUNTRY SINGER AND HER SON.
While her music took center stage in the late 1990s, it was her tumultuous personal life in the following decade that took center stage in the media. Struggling with addiction to alcohol and OxyContin, the singer attempted suicide on several occasions, and drifted from one dysfunctional romantic relationship to the next. In 2003, her boyfriend, country singer Billy McKnight, was arrested for attempted murder after an altercation where he beat and choked her nearly to death. A decade-long affair with the married (and fallen from grace) baseball icon Roger Clemens has been well documented but still is repeatedly denied by Clemens.
(side note: Clemens’ response to her suicide shines as another example of his lack of integrity, compassion, and ability to behave like a normal person.
“I had heard over time that she was trying to get peace and direction in her life. The few times that I had met her and her manager/agent they were extremely nice.”
Seriously, what a complete jerk and useless human being.)
I watched McCready’s appearance on the third season of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. While some of her cast mates quickly displayed feelings of self-importance, using obnoxious behavior in a desperate bid for attention, McCready was soft-spoken, compassionate, and exhibited a genuinely likable (and extremely damaged) persona.
She seemed so sweet and so hurt that I found myself just wanting to reach through the screen and give her a hug to let her know someone cared.
The media certainly didn’t. To tabloid shows and the Internet, she became a cartoon, a pathetic display of celebrity gone wrong. In a particularly despicable move, the Today Show interviewed McCready shortly after her boyfriend’s suicide and insinuated that she may have contributed to his death. Another classy move from what was once a great news program, now an embarrassment to NBC.
Mindy was only 37 years old and leaves behind two young children and five top-20 country singles.
I think that is much more important than sex tapes, affair allegations, and legal papers that are irrelevant now, anyway.
My compliments to the editorial writer. He grasps the basic truth about this person: she was troubled, conflicted, had serious mental problems, and she was exploited by those around her. I was astounded at Roger Clemen’s comments also. Let us pray for her family and friends.
Thank you Paul! I think Mindy has the ability to reach more people and contribute in a positive way with her death by stimulating some discussion and awareness to the troubles of addiction and mental illness. Unfortunately, more people will want to check out her sex tape or talk about the dog.
The media is to blame for most of the circumstances that lead up to suicides. But unfortunately, it’s circumstances such as these that sell. And the people that buy the magazines, and the books, and read the internet post that run these stories, are usually no better than the people they say are doing wrong.
The only way to get away from all this, is to stop selling hearsay. We need to get back to programing that changes lives, instead of embarrassing them on national TV. Do away with reality TV, and let people live their own lives, in their own way, and on their own terms.
If it’s not our business, why are we so quick to make it our business? Why do we have to run a person’s name through the mud, just because we don’t like what they are doing?
I am willing to bet that most people have skeleton’s in the closet. And most of those people would be willing to deface another person because of theirs, even though they hope and pray no one else finds out about their own.
Why is that?
On the other hand, reality television’s surge in popularity also could say that people LIKE to have their skeletons exposed before millions of people. They seem to ask for the negative attention that inevitably follows. It is interesting to think about what the motivation would be.
I don’t know that it’s liking to have skeletons exposed, as much as several strange facets of human behavior colliding into one monster: the negative feelings of exposure are less than the positive consequences of profit from it for these people, first. Second, poor behavior attracts attention (if it bleeds, it leads). Third, if you like the show, you draw attention to it, and if you despise the show vocally, you’re drawing attention to it. This is much like the paradox of negative political campaign ads in that people express a distaste for the tactic, and yet it’s highly effective in directing public sentiment. Yes, reality television should go, but it won’t.
Great article Fred. Very tragic story.
Thank you Rich.
Good article Fred. Living close to Nashville, I try to keep up with past and current artists. I have to say I was not surprised to hear of the suicide, although it is very sad…especially for the two little boys.
She reeked potential. Like you, I had heard her name associated with the country genre, but I had no idea the quality of what she did within her art. The suicide is the thing that brought her to my attention, and in all I’ve seen, her bearing suggested she could have done a great deal more were it not for the susceptibility to deeply haunting personal demons. You’ve quite beautifully and succinctly captured the essence not only of the situation, but of the personalities involved in opinion that is quite spot on with what any compassionate observer would feel. Fantastic work on a true tragedy on many levels.