NEW YORK • The ex-wife of grunge rocker Scott Weiland, who died after years of addiction, has urged fans not to glamorise the singer, but to learn from his mistakes.

The former Stone Temple Pilots singer died last Thursday at age 48 on his tour bus in Minnesota. Police found cocaine nearby.

In an open letter, his first wife Mary Forsberg offered thanks for the condolences, but described him as an absent father who neglected their children - aged 15 and 13 - and often failed to pay child support.

"I don't share this with you to cast judgment, I do so because you most likely know at least one child in the same shoes," she wrote in the letter published on Monday by Rolling Stone magazine.

"Let's choose to make this the first time we don't glorify this tragedy with talk of rock 'n' roll and the demons that, by the way, don't have to come with it."

Weiland, a two-time Grammy winner who was also part of the supergroup Velvet Revolver with former Guns N' Roses members, struggled for years with heroin use and battled with alcohol addiction.

Stone Temple Pilots helped define the early 1990s genre of grunge, a subset of alternative rock known for distorted guitar and often brooding introspection.

Ms Forsberg acknowledged that the singer, who remarried after their divorce, had a "brilliant electricity" as a musician, but criticised those who turned a blind eye to his problems.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE