Melissa Etheridge and Julie Cypher’s son, Beckett, has passed away aged 21.
The singer’s team declared the sad news on Twitter on Wednesday, clarifying the reason why there would be no Facebook Live singalong. Etheridge has been hosting virtual meetings since March. The tweet was had a lot of condolences from fans and friends.
The singer, 58, later stated on Facebook that her son had died from a drug overdose.
“Today I joined the hundreds of thousands of families who have lost loved ones to opioid addiction,” she said. “My son Beckett, who was just 21, struggled to overcome his addiction and finally succumbed to it today.”
“He will be missed by those who loved him, his family and friends,” she added. “My heart is broken. I am grateful for those who have reached out with condolences and I feel their love and sincere grief. We struggle with what else we could have done to save him, and in the end, we know he is out of the pain now.”
Etheridge continued, “I will sing again, soon. It has always healed me.”
Beckett and Cypher also have Bailey, their 23-year-old daughter. Both kids were born by sperm donation from friends and fellow musicians, David Crosby.
“My partner Julie was adopted,” Etheridge explained in an interview with Parents.com. “She spent her early twenties looking for her real parents, so she had that sort of issue in her life. She wanted her kids to know who their father was, but the father didn’t have any parental duties at all. It was just to know where they came from. If you want to know, this is who it is. That was important to her.”
The pair broke up in 2000 and Etheridge then had 2 more children. The “I’m the Only One” singer is a mom to Johnnie Rose and Miller Steven, the 13-year-old twins, with ex Tammy Lynn Michaels. They found an anonymous sperm donor. She clarified that although each situation has different circumstances, it did not make any difference to her children.
“There’s nothing like taking the responsibility or creating the responsibility of bringing a human being into this world and helping it in its first years,” she added. “It doesn’t matter the equation that gets you there or what you are to that person. It doesn’t matter at all. It is the bond between you and the child.”
