Quindon Tarver, child singer in ‘Romeo + Juliet,’ dead at 38
The former child star from McKinney appeared in Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 take on Shakespeare and on ‘American Idol.’
Quindon Tarver performs at the Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet, Ill. as a teenager in 1996. Tarver died Thursday at 38.(Raymond Boyd / Getty Images)
Romeo + Juliet and on seasons two and seven of
American Idol, has died. He was 38.
Tarver died in a car accident Thursday night on President George Bush Turnpike, his uncle Kevin Tarver said.
“He had been through so much,” said Kevin Tarver. “But his focus was on his music. He was getting ready to make his comeback. He had been in the studio working on a project that was supposed to be released this year.”
 In a 2017 interview with the ABC, Tarver said his career stalled after he spoke out about being sexually abused as a child in the music industry. I was hurting. I had been molested, I had been raped, I had lost my career, which is what I had dreamed of doing all my life, he told the outlet.  After coming home to Texas, Tarver said he struggled with drugs, alcohol and suicidal thoughts. he spoke of his suicidal thoughts in what was to be his final Instagram post, uploaded just days before his death last week. When I think of being at my lowest point in life & suicide was my only way out in 2012. After the attempted try that landed me on life support for 17 hours on a breathing machine. it was NOBODY BUT GOD that put breath back in my body, he wrote in the March 26 post, accompanying a short video of him singing: