Update: Vic Chesnutt in a coma after alleged suicide attempt

By Rick Griffin
Dec 24, 2009 11:13 PM

Update at 11pm PST on 12/24: After this article was originally published, Billboard magazine published their own report saying Chesnutt had passed. At this point, there are still no official statements.

Update at 11:30 pm PST on 12/24: Within the past half hour, both Billboard and Athens Blur have removed their articles reporting Chesnutt’s death. We’ve updated our headline from “Vic Chesnutt reportedly dead after alleged suicide attempt” to “Update: Conflicting reports on Vic Chesnutt condition after alleged suicide attempt” to reflect these changes. We continue to seek out an official statement and will update this story as new information comes in.

Update at 10am PST on 12/25: The Wall Street Journal reached Don Wilkie, co-founder of Constellation Records. Wilkie said, “There is no truth to the rumour that Vic has died. He remains alive.” We’ve updated our headline to “Update: Vic Chesnutt in a coma after alleged suicide attempt” to reflect this.

Our original story follows:

Reports circulated late Christmas Eve that singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt had died after falling into a coma.

Chesnutt’s label, Constellation Records, had confirmed in a statement that Chesnutt was in a coma mid-day, and Athens Blur magazine broke the news later that Chesnutt had died, though no official confirmation was available at press time.

Tweets from former Throwing Muses singer Kristen Hersh—a longtime friend of Chesnutt—circulated among bloggers through the day.

On Christmas Eve morning, Hersh posted:

no calls in the night-well, only to talk about how much we love vic-and no news is good news…if we lose him i’ll have lost my equilibrium.

and later

yeah, i can tell you what i know, but no one knows much: another suicide attempt, looks bad, coma—if he survives, there may be brain damage.

Later in the day, the Constellation press statement confirmed the coma.

Vic is in the middle of a serious medical situation, he is in a coma, and his family and friends are with him,” said Constellation Records’ Don Wilkie. “We have no comment right now on the specifics other than that his doctors are continuing to assess his condition. We will issue a full statement at an appropriate time. In the interim, we request that everybody respect Vic’s privacy and that of his family.”

On October, Chesnutt told Spinner that he’d run into recent financial problems. “Right now, I’m in huge trouble in that the hospital is suing me for $35,000, which is terrifying, and the rub is that I have health insurance. I have hospitalization insurance, for which I pay almost $500 a month, and then on top of that I still owe the hospital $35,000. That is truly an insane system. I did everything right and I’m still under the gun.”

Chesnutt, 45, was partially paralyzed and has been wheelchair-bound since being injured in a car accident at 18. He completed a tour in recent weeks in support of his latest release, At The Cut.

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