Depression has snuffed out lives of many great achievers. The latest has been Coco Lee,48, a Hong Kong-born US singer and songwriter. She slipped into a coma after she attempted suicide at home.  She was rushed to a hospital immediately and died on Wednesday.

Coco Lee died by suicide after having a long successful career in Asia in the 1990s and 2000s.

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She had been suffering from depression for several years, her siblings– elder sisters Carol and Nancy Lee — said in a statement.

Posting the sad news on Facebook and Instagram, they said her condition had deteriorated drastically over the last few months.

She took professional help to fight depression However, ‘that demon inside of her took the better of her’, their statement read.

Her original name was Ferren Lee born in Hong Kong. She took her education till high school in San Francisco, US. She won was the first runners-up in the reality show on TVB channel in Hong Kong which pushed her into a career in singing.

When she was 19, she released her first album in 1994.

With expertise in Mandopop, she finessed her art in Cantonese and English as well, she was a performer apart from being a good singer and was famous for her live performances worldwide.

She paved the way for other Chinese singers, her sisters said in their post. Lee was the first Chinese singer to break the ice ceiling and make a mark in the US music industry. Her English song “Do You Want My Love” stood out at No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Breakouts chart in Dec 1999.

Lee was the playback voice of heroine Fa Mulan in the Mandarin version of Disney’s hit film ‘Mulan’. Besides, she also sang the Mandarin version of the movie’s theme song “Reflection.”

In 2011, Lee married a Canadian businessman Bruce Rockowitz. He is the former CEO of HongKong supply chain company Li & Fung. She did not have her children, but had had two stepdaughters from Rockowitz.

She had shared several pictures of herself in an Instagram post on Dec. 31, 2022, with tattoos of the words “love” and “faith” for which she wrote  “… My two favorite words that I carry strongly in my heart which I desperately needed to get through this incredibly difficult year,”.

In March, she posted another post about her leg surgery, “Successful surgery. Even though I’m in a lot of pain and I have to re-learn how to walk again, I know I can do it,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “Yes I can and I will!”