Chester Bennington’s son slams Linkin Park reunion, calls fans ‘cruel’

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Jaime Bennington, the son of late Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington, has hit out at the band for replacing his father with Emily Armstrong.

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Earlier this month, the rock-rap band announced they are preparing to release new music for the first time since Chester’s death by suicide in 2017, with Armstrong sharing vocal duties with co-founder Mike Shinoda and Colin Brittain now drumming for the band. Brad Delson, Joe Hahn, and David ‘Phoenix’ Farrell, as well as Shinoda, are returning to the fold.

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The new lineup debuted the hard-charging new single, The Emptiness Machine, last week. A new LP, From Zero, will be released on Nov. 15.

Longtime members Shinoda, Delson, Farrell, and Hahn had been quietly meeting up again in recent years to connect creatively. Rather than “trying to restart the band,” they invited various friends and cohorts to join them in the studio; finding a special kinship with Armstong and Brittain.

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But Jamie slammed the reunion in an Instagram Story post, writing that Shinola had “quietly erased my father’s life and legacy in real time… during international suicide prevention month.”

He went on to question Armstrong’s involvement in the reunion, referencing her history with the Church of Scientology as well as her supportive comments of Danny Masterson, who was convicted of raping two women and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison in 2023.

“Hey Mike! People aren’t having a difficult time wrapping their head around the prospect of Linkin Park reinventing itself,” Jaime wrote. “They are having a hard time wrapping their head around how you: Hired your friend of many years @emilyarmstrong to replace @chesterbe knowing Emily’s history in the church and her history as an ally to @dannymasterson.”

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Jamie went on to accuse Shinoda of “refus(ing) to acknowledge the impact of hiring someone like Emily, without so much as a clarifying statement on the variety of victims that make up your core fan base.”

In another message, Jamie continued to criticize Shinoda, saying that he had “betrayed the trust loaned to you by decades of fans and supporting human beings including myself. We trusted you to be the bigger better person. To be the change. Because you promised us that was your intention. Now you’re just senile and tone deaf.”

After he voiced his disapproval, Jaime said some of the band’s fans have been “cruel, unusual and aggressive” in their response to his remarks.

“All these people come over to me and go, ‘You don’t know what your dad would think,’” he said in a follow-up social media video. “You’re coming over to my posts and my livestreams and telling me to kill myself, that I’m awful, that my father doesn’t appreciate me. What are you talking about? You didn’t give a f*** when he died. If you did, you would understand what the problem is. You would understand why this is all wrong. I do because I’m his kid.”

In a recent cover interview with Billboard, Shinoda said that he isn’t sure how fans will accept Armstrong singing some of the songs made famous by Chester.

“Emily was always going to be able to hit the notes and scream the parts,” he said. “It’ll be a question of, ‘How does it land with people?’ And I don’t know how it will. But I know that, when I hear it, I love it.”

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Armstrong also responded to complaints that she had spoken out in support of Masterson.

“Several years ago, I was asked to support someone I considered a friend at a court appearance, and went to one early hearing as an observer. Soon after, I realized I shouldn’t have. I always try to see the good in people, and I misjudged him. I have never spoken with him since,” she said in a statement posted to her Instagram Story.

“Unimaginable details emerged and he was later found guilty,” she continued. “To say it as clearly as possible: I do not condone abuse or violence against women, and I empathize with the victims of these crimes.”

At their first show this week, Shinoda told fans at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles that the band’s new era isn’t about “erasing the past.”

“It is about starting this new chapter into the future and coming out here for each and every one of you,” he said. “I mean, that’s part of why we’re back out here. We are thrilled to be back out here.”

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