Metallica: Frontman James Hetfield enters rehab; cancels Aus, NZ tour

American heavy metal band Metallica has said that its frontman James Hetfield has entered rehab. The incident has led the band to cancel its upcoming tour in Australia and New Zealand. Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Rob Trujillo who are the members of the band posted in the aforementioned information on Metallica's Twitter page. They added that anyone who purchased tickets for the remaining show dates will receive automatic refunds.
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Metallica's tweets

Metallica was scheduled to tour five Australian cities from October 17-29, followed by four shows in New Zealand. The band's statement read that Hetfield has struggled with addiction for years and has re-entered a treatment program. Requesting the fans to stand by James in his tough times, they added James will make his way to be part of the world tour as soon as his health and schedule permits. Irrespective of this, Metallica’s March 28 benefit concert in San Francisco's schedule remains unchanged, as is a South American tour set to begin on April 2020.

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James' struggle with addiction

The 56-year-old singer-songwriter has previously discussed his struggles with addiction and alcoholism, particularly in the 2004 documentary “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster”. Podcaster Joe Rogan readout James struggles in which he mentioned that fear was a big motivator for him which made him opt for alcohol and drugs. James was impacted the most with the loss of his family, he said. His father left when he was a kid, mother passed away which made him live with his brother. This had an impact on his life which was disintegrated since the beginning. As a result of his broken life and erratic behaviours and habits, his wife sent him out of the house but he did not want that. He wanted to take care of all that and talk it out. His journey to rehab is, in fact, a step towards making it work. 

(With inputs from Associated Press)

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