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Jethro Lazenby, Nick Cave's oldest son, has died at age 31. A cause of death has not been released. "With much sadness, I can confirm that my son, Jethro, has passed away," Cave wrote in a brief statement to the press on Monday. "We would be grateful for family privacy at this time.”
Lazenby was born in 1991 in Melbourne, Australia. His mother, Beau Lazenby, gave birth to him 10 days before Cave's second son Luke was born to his first wife, Viviane Carneiro. Lazenby didn't meet his father until he was seven or eight years old, an absence for which Cave expressed regret in a 2008 interview with The Guardian, though he said they had later grown close.
After moving to London as a young man and starting a modeling career, Lazenby returned to Australia. Last month, he was convicted of violently assaulting his mother in March. He was released this past Friday prior to his death. In court, his lawyer said he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
In 2015, another of Cave's sons, Arthur, died at 15 after falling from a cliff in England. Cave dedicated Ghosteen, his most recent studio album with his long-time band the Bad Seeds, to his younger son's memory.
