Article from the German Anime magazin Animania (May 1998) thanks to Oliver for scanning!

Good Bye hide-chan...

...we got the sad message that hide (Hideto Matsumoto), ex-guitarplayer of the Rockband X Japan died in the morning of May, 2nd 1998 in Tokyo. We are all shocked and dismayed, because it seems hide killed himself after a night full of alcohol in his sleeping room, where his girlfriend found him still alive. He died around 8:30 am in the hospital. It sounds like suicide, but every fan knows that hide, a friendly and sensitive person, went crazy when he was drunken and did things he despised later. I believe that it was an accident out of being mentally incompetent at that moment, because hide had a lot of plans for the future, so much fun with his music...

The fans all around the world are mourning, there are bad messages, that some commit suicide bacause they are desperate. Yoshiki, Toshi, Heath and Pata implore to the fans not to do this. Please don't do anything that hurts hides family and friends because they have a hard time to come. To hear from the death of the young people hit them hard and made their loss even more bitter. hide loved his fans, your are the most important now, his keepsake of him depends on you, from all of us. We appeal not to despair and to keep hide all together in our memory, like he was, because he will live in every heart that is devoted to him, in every eye that saw him with love.

Yashahime

Zdroj:http://www.x-japan.de/