Nick Cave has released a statement acknowledging the death of his son, Jethro Lazenby. “With much sadness, I can confirm that my son, Jethro, has passed away,” Cave wrote. “We would be grateful for family privacy at this time.”
Lazenby was born in Australia, in 1991, the child of Cave and Beau Lazenby. Cave’s second son, Luke Cave, was born just ten days later, to Cave’s first wife, the Brazilian stylist Viviane Carneiro. Cave was absent for much of Jethro’s early childhood.
“To my eternal regret I didn’t make much contact with Jethro in the early years,” Cave told The Guardian‘s Simon Hattenstone in 2008. He added, “I now have a great relationship with him,” but that’s all he said on the matter.
Speaking to London’s Evening Standard in 2012, Jethro, who worked as a fashion model, said, “I haven’t had the easiest life. It didn’t start off that great, having all this shit with my dad and being in his shadow.” He added, “When someone thinks I’m a lucky little rich kid, I want to throttle them.”
Violence was a feature of Jethro’s later years. In April 2022, The Herald Sun reported that Lazenby was jailed after pleading guilty to unlawfully assaulting his mother. The incident occurred in March 2022 at Beau Lazenby’s Collingwood home. Jethro’s lawyers told the court Jethro had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Jethro previously spent time in prison after assaulting his former girlfriend in 2018.
