As I Lay Dying Singer Tim Lambesis Set Himself On Fire!

Well, this is some news we definitely had to read twice.

Tim Lambesis, the controversial singer of Christian metalcore band As I Lay Dying, is in the hospital after setting himself on fire.

No, this is not some pyrotechnic stunt gone wrong, nor some self-induced penance (more on that later). It was a simple accident that has left the rocker in a hospital bed, looking down a long road of recovery.

In a surprise Instagram post on Wednesday, Lambesis explained he was on his way to surgery in a half hour. He then backed up and explained the accident that got him where he was:

“I apologize to my friends that I have not had the time to fill in yet on what happened. The entire gas cap fell off when trying to use a little from the trickle tip to get a bonfire started. Gas got all over my clothes and I ended up burning 25% of my body.”

Eesh! He continued:

“I’ve been in the hospital since Saturday night, and I will be here for a couple more weeks most likely. Today’s surgery is to remove the remaining dead skin that we were unable to scrub off during dressing changes this week. It will be for the best so that we won’t have to scrub so hard during dressing changes, and that is a big relief for me. I am extremely thankful for the Burns center workers who are taking care of me. I will try to update on my recovery. It will be a long road, but I will get back to full strength eventually.

Well, we certainly wouldn’t wish this sort of pain on anyone — not even Lambesis.

If you’re wondering why we’d phrase it that way, well, the last time we heard about him and his band was about seven years ago — when he was arrested for attempting to kill his wife. Yeah.

For those who never heard about this, Lambesis apparently tried to hire a hitman to murder his estranged wife Meggan Murphy. That hitman turned out to be an undercover detective, and the metalcore star was charged with felony solicitation of murder. After first blaming steroids, eventually Lambesis pleaded guilty (they reportedly had audio of him paying the guy for crying out loud!), and he was sentenced to six years in prison. He served only two and a half years before being released on probation in December 2016.

A year later he wrote a lengthy public apology, saying on the band’s Facebook page:

“Words cannot begin to express how deeply sorry I am for the hurt that I have caused. There is no defense for what I did, and I look back on the person I became with as much disdain as many of you likely do… To the people who looked up to me as an artist, I let you down in so many ways. I tried to show my best side to the public, while feeding an ugly growing monster behind closed doors.”

Since his release, Lambesis put the band back together and got back to his career as a rockstar. As I Lay Dying‘s most recent record was released in September of last year. It was called Shaped By Fire.

[Image via CM Wiggins/WENN/Tim Lambesis/Instagram.]