Photo: Christopher Polk/2010 Getty Images
In an Instagram Story Thursday, Hayley Williams mourned the death of her ex-husband, the New Found Glory guitarist Chad Gilbert, who died on Sunday at the age of 45 after a yearslong battle with cancer.
“Have not known what to say or if it’s appropriate, but I feel sure now that I want to bc life is made of the paths we cross and the reasons we cross them are infinite,” Williams wrote in her post. She called Gilbert a “legend in the scene” who shaped her life “in beautiful ways” and helped define pop-punk and hard-core. “His influence and attitude guided the genre forward. His passion for fostering the community was inspiring and sticks with me,” Williams wrote.
Williams and Gilbert started dating in 2008 and married in 2016 after a two-year engagement before splitting up in 2017. At the time of their separation, Gilbert and Williams said they remained “close friends who are good in each other’s eyes.” This April, Gilbert — who underwent treatment for adrenal cancer in 2021 — told People he’d been diagnosed with stage-four adrenocortical carcinoma after doctors discovered three tumors in his brain and gave him emergency surgery. His death was announced in a joint statement by his New Found Glory bandmates and his wife, Lisa Cimorelli, with whom he shares a daughter.
“I will forever be grateful that from him I gained a deeper understanding and a reverence for the community and culture of hardcore,” Williams wrote in her tribute to Gilbert. “Sending love and my sympathies to his family, NFG fam, and all his friends.”
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