What The Final Year Of Layne Staley's Life Was Really Like

By the time Layne Staley passed away, the Alice in Chains singer was physically and emotionally crippled by his drug addiction, so isolated that no publicly available pictures exist from this period. This is what the final 12 months of his life were like.

According to Guitar World, in 1997, Layne Staley purchased an apartment in Seattle's bustling University District. This would be the singer's home for the next five years, leading up to his death. Yet, for the last year of his life, almost no one visited Staley in this apartment, and he rarely left. For the most part, Layne lived an incredibly private and insular life in the year leading up to his death, to the point where the few times people did see him, it was a notable event that they remembered vividly.

According to a Facebook memorial post by early collaborator Tim Branom that was reprinted in Alternative Nation,

"In the end, almost no one could contact Layne. He wouldn't answer the door or take calls. He lived in a condo right smack in front of everyone, in the University District. He weighed 80-some pounds and his health was deteriorating. There were reports that he would go to Toys R Us to buy games and return home, but always by himself."

Watch this video for more on what the final year of Layne Staley's life was really like!

#LayneStaley #AliceInChains

Locked away from the world | 0:00
Losing himself in video games | 1:09
Knowing death was near | 1:51
Warning others about heroin | 2:48
Layne’s mother worked at rehab | 3:47
Poor health, but good spirits | 4:51
His family remembers him happy | 5:47
An unrecorded final performance | 6:48
The ghost of his girlfriend | 7:37
Refusing medical attention | 8:50
His body wasn’t found for weeks | 9:42
A legacy of recovery and hope | 10:30

Read full article: https://www.grunge.com/220507/what-the-final-12-months-of-layne-staleys-life-was-like/