She welcomed People into her home for this week’s issue, sharing beautiful memories of the life he had with her and their two kids Toni, 12, and Christopher, 11, as well as his daughter Lily, 17, from a previous marriage. But Vicky also opened up about the reason she feels he’s now gone.

 

“My Chris was happy, loving, caring and warm,” says Vicky. “This was not a depressed man - it wasn’t like I missed that. What I missed were the signs of addiction.”

 

Cornell had struggled with substance abuse since childhood but had been sober for years, says his widow. But at the time of the singer’s death, prescription drugs were found in his system, including the anti-anxiety medication Ativan. She says for reasons that have never been explained to her, the medical examiner considered his death to be a suicide within hours - before toxicology results or full autopsy results, before the conclusion of the investigation into the circumstances of his death, and before considering the possibility that the drugs in his system, individually or collectively, altered his mental state (the coroner can only comment on immediate cause of death, not on what precipitated it).

 

For Vicky, it’s clear that a drug relapse drastically altered his state of mind on the last night of his life. “He didn’t want to die,” she says. “If he was of sound mind, I know he wouldn’t have done this.”