Adam Gabbatt in New York, The Guardian UK

‘Guys Do It All the Time’ and ‘O Romeo’ singer found at home with what appears to be a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound

Country singer Mindy McCready died in Arkansas on Sunday, police said, after apparently shooting herself in the head.

The 37-year-old, who was noted for a turbulent personal life and her struggles with addiction, was found on the same porch where her boyfriend David Wilson is believed to have shot himself last month.

McCready found fame in 1996 with a series of hits from her first album, Ten Thousand Angels. Her best known track, Guys Do It All the Time, reached number one in the US country charts but she failed to maintain that level of success despite releasing another four albums over the following 14 years.

[O Romeo made the UK charts and was her biggest hit there.]

Cleburne County sheriff’s office said deputies were dispatched to McCready’s home at 3.31pm on Sunday after receiving a report of gunshots. Officers found McCready on the front porch of the house in Heber Springs, about 60 miles north of Little Rock. A police news release said she was pronounced dead at the scene, “from what appears to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound”.

It is thought that McCready had tried to kill herself at least three times since 2005. She was charged with obtaining the painkiller OxyContin fraudulently at a pharmacy in 2004, pleading guilty, and violated the terms of her probation from that offence a year later when she was arrested for drunk driving. McCready had been hospitalised in May 2010 after police responded to an overdose call at a Florida home owned by her mother.

“I call my life a beautiful mess and organised chaos,” she told the Associated Press in 2010. “It’s just always been like that. My entire life, things have been attracted to me, and vice versa, that turn into chaotic nightmares, or I create the chaos myself. I think that’s really the life of a celebrity, of a big, huge, giant personality.”

McCready had been ordered by a court to enter rehab earlier this month, Fox News reported, after her father told a judge she was abusing alcohol and was unable to take care of herself or her two sons. The boys were placed in foster care when McCready entered rehab, but it was not clear where they were at the time of her death.

The singer had previously appeared on Celebrity Rehab with Dr Drew in 2010, where she had discussed her problems with alcohol. McCready was back in the news in December 2011 when she took Zander, her elder son from a relationship with singer Billy McKnight, from the Florida home of his maternal grandmother – the boy’s legal guardian since 2007 – without permission.

Police found McCready and the then 5-year-old child in the bedroom closet of an unoccupied summer home in Arkansas.

McCready had previously spoken of her pain after Wilson’s death on 13 January, describing the record producer and father of her second child as her “soulmate”.

“Those who knew and loved him will miss him; those who did not know David missed the opportunity to know a truly loving and gifted man,” McCready said. The pair had been in a relationship for over two years, and had a nine-month old son, Zayne.

In a statement released after Wilson’s death McCready said he had been a father figure to both her children.

“David was my soulmate; he was a caregiver and guiding hand to our sons, Zander and Zayne,” she said. In an interview with NBC soon after his death she added: “I just keep telling myself that the more suffering that I go through, the greater character I’ll have.”

Following her dearth, a number of singers paid tributes to McCready. “I grew up listening to Mindy McCready … so sad for her family tonight. Many prayers are going out to them,” said Carrie Underwood, who won American Idol in 2005.

Richard Marx remembered the singer’s “poor children”, while Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks wrote: “Too much tragedy to overcome. RIP Mindy McCready.”

For more on this story go to:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/18/country-singer-mindy-mcready-dead