Paroled in 2016 after serving two years of a six-year prison sentence imposed when he pleaded guilty to trying to hire a hitman in 2013 to murder his ex-wife, As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis now admits that, on reflection, he could have handled his marital strife in "a thousand different ways."
A year on from his 2012 divorce from his ex-wife Meggan, the singer attempted to hire a hitman to murder his ex: the 'hitman' turned out to be an undercover police officer.
On the anniversary of his release, the singer apologised to his ex-wife, children, family, friends, bandmates and fans, saying "Words cannot begin to express how deeply sorry I am for the hurt that I have caused. There is no defence for what I did, and I look back on the person I became with as much disdain as many of you likely do.
“First, I apologise to my former wife and remarkable children for my appalling actions. There’s not a single day that goes by where I don’t wish I could undo the damage I caused, and out of respect for their wishes I will not discuss anything else about them – now or in the future."
The new comments came as the 41-year-old singer was speaking on The Garza Podcast, hosted by Suicide Silence guitarist Chris Garza.
Reflecting on his state of mind at the time of his offence, Lambesis says [as transcribed by Blabbermouth], "My thinking was so isolated in my own mind and disconnected from my support system that I didn't really even fathom or realise how much I had lost myself and the core of who I really was. It's, like, I was this one person for most of my life, and then for this period of time, I had this very isolated, different type of mindset, and then have since returned to being much of who I was in the earlier part of my life plus, of course, the added perspective of everything I went through.
"I don't really know how to describe it," he continued. "I lost myself, I lost my way, and I sat there in a cell being, like, 'How did I become this person?' It kind of blew my own mind. And as the mental cloud, the fog went away and I could see clearly, there are so obviously a thousand better ways that I could have gone through a divorce or a thousand better ways that if I wanted to be close with my family…
"I can talk about, vaguely speaking, any father who loses his children, there's a burning feeling of just, like, 'I'll do anything to fix this or to make this right or to maintain this relationship.' But just 'cause you feel like you would be willing to do anything to maintain what matters to you the most in the world doesn't mean you show that those are your best options.
"And I saw clearly sitting there thinking in a cell, 'Wow, I could have handled this a thousand different ways,' and the fact that in my mindset I thought at the time this was the best way to handle the situation, it blew my own mind. It's, like, how did I even think that? It just was shocking. And there's really no defense or no way to take away what I did other than that, thankfully, there was actually no true physical harm of any kind."
As I Lay Dying have been playing shows with Lambesis since 2018.
Watch the full The Garza Podcast interview below:
