Melissa Etheridge's 21-Year-Old Son Dies Of Overdose

LOS ANGELES, CA — Singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge Wednesday announced the opioid overdose death of her 21-year-old son Beckett Cypher, whose biological father was musician David Crosby.

Cypher had been battling addiction, said Etheridge, who also described the grief that hers and so many families live with because of the opioid crisis. Cypher was Etheridge's child with her former partner Julie Cypher.

"Today I joined the hundreds of thousands of families who have lost loved ones to opioid addiction," she said in a statement released on her social media accounts. "He will be missed by those who loved him, his family and friends. 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," she wrote. "I will sing again, soon. It has always healed me."

Etheridge, who lives in Los Angeles, did not say where her son passed.

Etheridge, 58, and filmmaker Julie Cypher, 55, conceived Beckett and their 23-year-old daughter Bailey through a sperm donation from Crosby, who tweeted a news story about the young man's death without comment.

The singer also has 13-year-old twins, son Miller Steven and daughter Johnnie Rose, from her relationship with Tammy Lynn Michaels, which ended in 2010.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.