Samantha Bennington Describes How She Met Chester Bennington in Excerpt from New Memoir

2020-11-19

Samantha Bennington describes how she met Chester Bennington in an excerpt from her memoir, "Falling Love Notes: Memories of a Rock Star Wife."

Chester Bennington – Story by Cat Badra, photo by Anne Erickson

Samantha Bennington describes how she met Chester Bennington at an early Grey Daze show in an excerpt from her memoir, “Falling Love Notes: Memories of a Rock Star Wife”

Samantha Bennington, former wife of Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington, is gearing up to release her debut memoir, “Falling Love Notes: Memories of a Rock Star Wife.” She and Chester were married from 1996 to 2005.

Samantha tells Billboard that her book focuses on her relationship with Chester, including how they met and how his career progressed during their time together.

“I began this project of my ‘Memories’ around eight to nine years ago,” she tells Billboard. “I had planned for Falling Love Notes to be released in the fall of 2017. Unfortunately, our lives changed dramatically that June.”

“Our son, family, and I needed to grieve and work on major healing. Honestly, my project took a major back seat to my life at that time,” Samantha added. “Now that my ending has changed and I continue to heal. I found a huge amount of purpose and needed to finish what I had started.”

Samantha says the two met in January 1996 after she went to a show featuring his early band, Grey Daze. The band had a loyal local following, and Samantha purchased one of their CDs at the show. She chatted with the drummer and guitarist, and they invited her to their next show.

“As we were talking, I saw the singer sitting down on a barstool in the back, so I went up to him to introduce myself,” the excerpt states, adding that Chester, at the time, was under the weather, with a fever of 103 degrees. “His voice was completely captivating, and his energy level was insane. You would never have known that he was sick.”

Chester and Samantha fell in love quickly, according to her memoir. They were married later that year and had a son, Draven Sebastian Bennington.

Author
Recent Posts

Cat Badra

Meet the expert - Cat Badra is a music writer for Audio Ink Radio and a range of other music, sports and lifestyle publications. She's a graduate of Michigan State University with a master's degree in theater and speech. Contact her at cat@audioinkradio.com.