HAYLEY WILLIAMS BREAKS HER SILENCE ON CHAD GILBERT’S PASSING WITH HEARTFELT TRIBUTE

Photo: Zachary Gray

Hayley Williams has shared a heartfelt statement following the passing of New Found Glory guitarist Chad Gilbert, reflecting on her former husband’s influence on her life, hardcore culture, and the music community he helped shape.

The Paramore vocalist shared the statement on Instagram, describing Gilbert as “a legend in the scene” while acknowledging how much she learned during the years their lives were intertwined.

“Chad is indeed a legend in the scene and my time connected to him taught me a lot,” Williams wrote.

Williams and Gilbert were married from 2016 to 2017, though their relationship stretched back years before their marriage. In her statement, Williams focused largely on the people, music, and culture Gilbert brought into her life, and on how those connections have remained with her.

“He introduced me to people that continue to shape my life in beautiful ways,” Williams wrote, adding that the music and culture she was exposed to through Gilbert made her life “a lot richer.”

Williams also addressed Gilbert’s impact beyond New Found Glory, particularly his place within hardcore and the larger community surrounding the genre.

“His influence and attitude guided the genre forward,” she wrote, while also highlighting Gilbert’s passion for fostering the community around him.

For Williams, that influence was personal as well. She said she will forever be grateful that her time connected to Gilbert gave her “a deeper understanding and a reverence for the community and the culture of hardcore.”

Gilbert’s impact on punk, pop punk and hardcore stretched far beyond his work onstage. As a founding member and guitarist of New Found Glory, he helped shape a sound that would become hugely influential to generations of bands that followed, while remaining closely connected to the hardcore community that helped produce it.

Williams closed her statement by sending her love and sympathy to Gilbert’s family, his New Found Glory bandmates, and his friends.

Her message joins the outpouring of tributes from throughout the music community remembering Gilbert and the impact he made both personally and musically.

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