Former American football star hanged himself in prison.

This is really a sad news. Its been reported that former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez committed suicide in his prison cell, prison officials report.

Guards found Hernandez, 27, hanging in his cell around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Massachusetts.

Officials say Hernandez ripped a bed sheet to form a noose around his neck and tied it to a window in his cell.

He was pronounced dead at UMass Memorial-Health Alliance Hospital in Leominster about an hour later.

Hernandez was housed in a single cell at the maximum security prison. Last week, he broke down and cried when a jury acquitted him of murder in the 2012 shooting deaths of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in Boston.