America’s Got Talent contestant Skilyr Hicks was found dead at her friend’s house in Liberty, South Carolina. Drug overdose is suspected as the cause of death. It seems that she had been struggling for months to deal with pain, and might have turned to drugs to ease the discomfort. In a social media post from June 2021, Hicks explained how music was the only thing in her life that helped her deal with regular emotional and mental anguish.
She was just 23 years old when she died of an apparent drug overdose. She wrote in a Facebook post, how music “helped me to heal when no one else could,” which shed light on her suffering in the final months of her brief life.
“I don’t make music. Music makes me,” she said on the post. “It’s my life, the breath in my lungs, and it’s the steady beating of my heart. It has helped me cry the tears that I was holding onto for so long. It has shown me that I don’t have to put on this so-called ‘metaphorical mask’ that everyone seems to be putting on these days.”
After struggling with substance abuse issues and legal difficulties for many years, she died suddenly. She was from Ashtabula, Ohio, and was living in South Carolina at the time of her death.
According to Pickens County Chief Deputy Chad Brooks, they suspect that Hicks died from an accidental drug overdose.
On June 20, 2021, Hicks continued her Facebook post by writing: “That I don’t have to hide my pain, that it’s okay to show how you feel, it’s okay to be you. It had touched a deep part of my soul that before I never knew existed.”
She added, “Every song I write is a different story. It’s not just lyrics and a tune. It’s an expression of how I feel. It’s the pain; it’s the laughter, the tears, and the heartbreak that I have known. It has touched other people in ways I never would have imagined possible. And just being able to make a difference in someone’s life, even in the smallest way, is the most amazing feeling for me.”
She continued, “I don’t write songs because I have to, or because I’m expected to… I write them because it’s the one thing in this world that makes me truly happy. And I hope that one day, you too will find that one thing.”
When Hicks was discovered, she was sprawled out on the bathroom floor. She was surrounded by illegal drugs and other accouterments. According to Chief Deputy Brooks, officials are running toxicology tests to determine if she died from an overdose as they suspect.
According to TMZ, Jodi, Hick’s mother, said her daughter suffered from depression and substance abuse throughout her life. Nonetheless, Jodi stated that “she will live on through her music.”
Hicks first gained attention in 2013 when she appeared on America’s Got Talent at the age of fourteen. She performed an original song called Brand New Day, which was written about her late father.
