Melissa Etheridge has issued a statement following the death of her son, Beckett Cypher. The 21-year-old died as a result of an opioid addiction.

"Today, I joined the hundreds of thousands of families who have lost loved ones to opioid addiction," she wrote. "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."

Etheridge added that her "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. I will sing again soon. It has always healed me."

Beckett was born in late 1998, the second of two children Etheridge and then-partner Julie Cypher had via artificial insemination. In January 2000, shortly after Beckett's first birthday, David Crosby revealed that he was the biological father of both children. The first, Bailey, was born in 1996. Etheridge and Cypher ran into Crosby and his wife while vacationing in Hawaii, and it was Jan Crosby who suggested that Crosby serve as the semen donor.

"It just fell out of my lips," Jan Crosby recalled. "It could have something to do with I believe that human beings are called on to have beings come through them, and they were talking about this, and I had my five-month-old son on my chest, and I saw a longing in them and a love, and I knew that it was deep and that it was pure and true."

Although Etheridge and Cypher have since split up, they lived next door to each other, and Crosby remained a presence in their children's lives.


In Memoriam: 2020 Deaths