Mindy McCready, who hit the top of the country charts before personal problems sidetracked her career, has died in an apparent suicide.

The 37-year-old was found dead on the front porch of her home in Heber Springs, Arkansas, on Sunday from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, authorities said.

McCready’s longtime boyfriend David Wilson, the father of one of her two sons, died last month.

He was believed to have shot himself on the same porch of their home, and his death was also investigated as a suicide.

McCready, whose list of problems only continued to grow in 2013, had attempted suicide in the past.

The singer entered court-ordered rehab earlier this month after her father told a judge she was no longer taking care of herself or her children and was abusing drugs and alcohol.

Her sons were put in foster care at the time, but it was not clear where Zander, 6, and 10-month-old Zayne were when McCready died.

The death of Wilson, a record producer, had hit  McCready hard.

In interviews, she called him her soul mate and a caregiver to her sons, saying she had never gone through anything as painful as his death.

“I just keep telling myself that the more suffering that I go through, the greater character I’ll have,” she said in interview with NBC.

News of McCready’s death spread quickly on Twitter, with major country stars paying their respects to the onetime Nashville darling.

“Too much tragedy to overcome. R.I.P Mindy McCready,” wrote Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks.

Melinda Gayle McCready arrived in Nashville in 1994 still in her teens with tapes of her karaoke vocals and earned a recording contract with BNA Records.

In 1996, her Guys Do It All the Time hit No 1 and its dig at male chauvinism endeared her to females.

Her other hits included Ten Thousand Angels, also in 1996, and her album by that title sold 2m copies.

She spent the next 15 years chasing another hit as personal problems began plaguing her.

Her problems included a custody battle with her mother over one of her sons, an overdose and discord in her love life.

McCready took her older son, Zander, from her mother and the boy’s legal guardian, Gayle Inge, in late 2011.

She fled to Arkansas without permission over what she called child abuse fears.

Authorities eventually found McCready hiding in a residence without permission and took the boy into custody.

She and Wilson had a son, Zayne, in April 2012. The older son’s father is McCready’s former boyfriend Billy McKnight.

In May 2010, she was put in hospital briefly after police responded to an overdose call at a home in North Fort Myers, Florida, owned by her mother.

This followed a stint on Celebrity Rehab With Dr Drew, where she declared herself to be clean from drugs. She is the fifth celebrity appearing on that show to have died.

But her troubles began earlier. In 2004, she was charged with obtaining the painkiller Oxycontin fraudulently at a pharmacy. She pleaded guilty and was placed on three years’ probation.

She violated the probation with a drunken driving arrest in May 2005.

A few days after that arrest, she had a physical fight with McKnight and he was charged with attempted criminal homicide.

The charge was later downgraded to misdemeanour assault after McCready changed her story and he spent 30 days in jail.

Then she attempted suicide in July 2005, overdosed in September 2005 – while pregnant with Zander – and slit her wrists in December 2008.

Also that year, McCready was charged in Arizona with hindering prosecution and unlawful use of transportation.

Those charges stemmed from an alleged attempt in June 2005 to purchase two high performance boats, but she claimed she was trying to stop a con man.

In July 2007, she was arrested in her home town of Fort Myers, Florida, on misdemeanour charges of scratching her mother on the face during a scuffle and resisting sheriff’s deputies.

In June 2008, McCready was arrested and charged with violating her probation by falsifying her community service records relating to the 2004 drug charge.

A month later, she entered an extended care facility for undisclosed treatment, and followed that with a 60-day jail sentence.

In early 2010 she hoped to get her career restarted, write a book about her experiences and begin production on a reality show. She felt she’d finally gained some control over her life.

“It is a giant whirlwind of chaos all the time,” she said.

“I call my life a beautiful mess and organised chaos.

“It’s just always been like that. My entire life things have been attracted to me and vice versa that turn into chaotic nightmares or I create the chaos myself.

“I think that’s really the life of a celebrity, of a big, huge, giant personality.”

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