The team of Melissa Etheridge revealed her son Beckett Cypher died at age 21. “We’re sad to inform you that Melissa’s son Beckett passed away and there will not be a Concerts From Home show today,” read the statement on her Twitter page, posted on Wednesday, May 13. The cause of death was not immediately available.

 

Etheridge, 58, shares Beckett and daughter Bailey Jean, 23, with ex Julie Cypher. She also has two children from her relationship with Tammy Lynn Michaels — twins Miller and Johnnie, who are 13.

Etheridge and Cypher welcomed Beckett and his sister, Bailey, with the help of a sperm donation from friend and musician David Crosby. “My partner Julie was adopted,” Etheridge explained in a 2018 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.”

Melissa Etheridge honoured with Star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame, Los Angeles, America - 27 Sep 2011
Broadimage/Shutterstock

Etheridge later admitted that having Crosby as the sperm donor later seemed “like, really complicated. Like, super complicated,” while chatting with Andy Cohen on WWHL. Despite any drama, it sounds like the biological dad of her eldest children did remain a part of their lives, even if not in a fatherly role. “He’s a very good friend of mine,” she continued.

And her kids seemed to be okay with that, to the point that they were even comfortable joking about their origins. “My children are like, ‘I could have had Brad Pitt as a father!’” she joked after admitting she once considered the A-list actor to be her sperm donor, but decided against it because he wanted children of his own. “I’m like, ‘No,'” she said.

Regardless of who their father was, Beckett and Bailey’s moms did an amazing job raising them. “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 told Parents.com. “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.”

It certainly sounds like Beckett and Etheridge had a very special bond, and our hearts go out to her in this difficult time.