Chris Cornell Files For Restraining Order Against Associate Of His Ex-Wife

Chris Cornell's extremely strained relationship with his former wife and manager, Susan Silver, has worsened.The former Soundgarden and Audioslave singer — who released his second solo album, Carry On, this summer — has filed for a restraining order against a man he claims was hired by Silver to stalk and torment him, his new wife and their two young children.

"Petitioners... are being harassed, stalked and spied-on by an individual who most recently broke into their home carrying a gun," says the motion that was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against a former sheriff's deputy named Matt Turner last week.

Cornell alleges that Turner, "under the guise of being a process server," has broken into his Los Angeles house at least three times. The first occasion was in September 2006, when Turner and another man walked through the residence without realizing that Cornell's wife Vicky was home bathing their children. She locked herself in the bathroom and called 911, and the court documents claim that "the intruder ran toward the bathroom, and banged on the bathroom door, yelling violent and terrifying threats against Vicky and her family." The three of them climbed out the bathroom window and ran to a neighbour's house.

Turner admitted to police that he was at the Cornell home on June 7, 2007, supposedly to serve the singer with court papers on Silver's behalf, and had peered through the windows. He returned two days later with a concealed weapon, the petition states, and refused to leave despite being ordered to do so by security guards.

Cornell says that the family returned to their new home — which they were advised to purchase under a different name by authorities — on Dec. 3, where they discovered that someone had set off an alarm but had left before police arrived. That prompted Cornell to seek the restraining order to keep Turner from coming within 100 yards of him and his family for three years.

Cornell's petition says that Silver has sent the family "numerous threatening and terrifying death threats" that have left them "in a constant state of fear."

Cornell and Silver parted ways in 2002 after 12 years of marriage that spawned a son, and they've been at odds with each other ever since. Early last year, he filed a complaint with California's Labor Commission that claimed Silver violated the state's Talent Agency Act because she booked a variety of personal and television appearances for Soundgarden when she didn't have a licence to do so.

A few months earlier, Cornell filed a lawsuit against Silver that sought more than $1 million U.S. in damages over claims that his ex diverted money owing to him to other members of Soundgarden and that she kept a number of things that were of "significant monetary and personal value" to him, including two Grammy Awards, journals, music sheets, some demo tapes and personal recordings.