Melissa Etheridge opened up about the unexpected moment when her late son, Beckett, came out as straight to her.
“I remember, my oldest son, Beckett, who actually passed away, when he was about 11, he comes to me and says, ‘Mom, I’m sorry, but I think I’m straight,” Etheridge, 64, revealed on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Wednesday, April 8. “I was like, ‘No, no, really, it’s OK!’”
Etheridge joked that she tried to tell her son that he was just going through “a phase.” The two-time Grammy Award winner also compared her experience with Beckett to her own childhood, during which she felt like a “tomboy.” (The musician came out as a lesbian in January 1993.)
“Kids come [into the world] who they are anyway, and it’s just watching them find that is really [special],” she pointed out.
Etheridge is the mom of three other children. She shares daughter Bailey, 29, with her former partner Julie Cypher and welcomed twins Johnnie Rose and Miller Steven, 19, with her ex Tammy Lynn Michaels in 2006.
In May 2020, Etheridge announced that her and Cypher’s son, Beckett, had died at age 21 due to causes related to opioid addiction.
“Today I joined the hundreds of thousands of families who have lost loved ones to opioid addiction,” she shared via Twitter (now X) at the time. “My son Beckett, who was just 21, struggled to overcome his addiction and finally succumbed to it today.”
She went on, “He will be missed by those who loved him, his family and friends. My heart is broken.”
The “Come to My Window” singer added that she took comfort in those who “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 wrote. “I will sing again, soon. It has always healed me.”
During an August 2020 interview with Rolling Stone, Etheridge described how she was trying to move on with her life after the devastation of losing a child.
“As the mother of someone who was addicted to opioids, it’s a struggle,” she told the publication. “You want to help your child. You want to make them all better. He was a young adult. There were things out of my control, of course.”
She went on, “There came a time when I needed to really sit down with myself and say, ‘I can’t save him. I can’t give up my life and go try to live his life for him.’ And I had to come up against the possibility that he might die. But I had to be able to go on living.”
Etheridge subsequently wrote the song “Call You” — which features on her 2026 album, Rise — in honor of her late son. She also launched The Etheridge Foundation to support research into new treatments for addiction and offer support for families of those impacted by the opioid crisis.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
