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Watkins was serving a 29-year prison sentence at HMP Wakefield in England.
ENGLAND, UK — Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins died in a United Kingdom prison Saturday, according to West Yorkshire Police. He was 48.
Police arrested two men, one 25 and the other 43, on suspicion of murder. They responded to the HMP Wakefield prison about a “serious assault on a prisoner” around 9:39 a.m. Authorities pronounced Watkins dead at the scene.
An investigation is ongoing and no motive is known at this time. No other details are available.
Watkins was serving a 29-year prison sentence at HMP Wakefield in England. His sentence began in 2013 when he pleaded guilty to 13 child sex offences, according to Reuters.
The high-security prison, which houses some of the UK’s most dangerous offenders, is nicknamed the “Monster Mansion,” according to the Wakefield Express. It holds roughly 600 men.
Two women were also sentenced to 14 and 17 years in connection to the charges. They were not identified to protect the identities of their abused children, according to the BBC.
Mr Justice John Royce said their actions “plunged into new depths of depravity” during sentencing.
Watkins was attacked by prisoners in 2023, as well. In that incident, he was “repeatedly stabbed and beaten” by inmates who held him hostage for six hours, according to The Rolling Stone.
He served as the leading man of Lostprophets, a rock band which formed in 1997 and disbanded after his 2012 arrest.
The band, best known for hits like ‘Last Train Home,’ sold over 3 million albums globally, according to The Rolling Stone.
Despite Watkins’s criminal charges, the band’s music has maintained a following. The band has 280,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Their last album “Weapons” released in 2012.
