Singer Jackson Browne Announces Death of His Son at 52

The news involving the "For a Dancer" singer's family has drawn quiet attention this week, arriving at a moment when the musician’s long public journey continues to intersect with deeply personal chapters.

Singer-songwriter Jackson Browne announced the death of his son, Ethan Browne, in a somber message shared on his official Facebook page on Wednesday, November 26, 2025.

The post asked the public to respect the family's privacy as they navigate the sudden loss and noted that no further details are available at the time.

A Life Lived in the Public Eye

Ethan, 52, was the eldest child of Jackson and his late first wife, Phyllis Major, and had long been a quiet yet familiar presence around his father's life and legacy.

He worked in entertainment, appearing in films and television across the early 2000s, and was featured in publications including Rolling Stone, which placed him in Jackson's arms on its May 23, 1974, cover when he was just six months old.

Born on November 2, 1973, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Ethan grew up in Los Angeles. He later built a career that included acting and modeling roles documented on his mini-biography page.

He was the older brother of Ryan Browne, Jackson's son with his second wife, Lynne Sweeney. Over the years, Ethan joined Jackson at public events, including red carpet appearances and charity gatherings.

Reflections on Fatherhood

While Ethan maintained a relatively private public profile, glimpses of his life surfaced through interviews with Jackson, who openly reflected on fatherhood, grief, and the bond he shared with his son.

In a 2025 interview with TRU ROCK Revival, Jackson spoke warmly about watching Ethan grow into parenthood, offering the simple tribute, "Ethan is a great father."

He also talked about how much it meant to watch Ethan with his children, saying those moments reassured him that, somewhere along the way, he had done something genuinely meaningful as a parent.

Balancing Legacy, Loss, and Career

Jackson's reflections on parenting have often been intertwined with the emotional history that shaped his early career. After Phyllis died in 1976, the musician became a single father, raising Ethan while navigating the demands of recording and touring.

In an interview with Route Magazine, he spoke candidly about the challenges of balancing creativity and parenthood, saying:

"The mistakes I've made as a parent are still with me. I think about them fairly often. It's not that you're not trying the whole time. It's not that I wasn't trying then. You're just distracted by other things and some things don't occur to you. Or maybe you ignore advice that you should have taken, because you're overconfident."

In the same interview, he reflected that, during the busiest years of his career, he believed financial stability and hired help would fill the gaps created by constant work.

With time, he realized that support systems don't always match a child's needs, and even well-intentioned choices can miss the mark when someone is still learning to balance ambition with the daily demands of parenting.

Early Years in a Transformative Musical Era

Ethan's earliest years unfolded as his father was finding his place among Los Angeles' burgeoning songwriters, a period when music and family life constantly overlapped. During that era, Jackson often moved through interviews and studio sessions with one eye still drifting toward his young son, adjusting the room or shifting his attention whenever Ethan needed it.

Those moments revealed a man still navigating what it meant to be both a rising artist and a new parent — someone whose playfulness with his child blurred the line between youthful instinct and emerging responsibility.

Even in the songs he crafted then, he hinted at the uncertainty of stepping into adulthood, a theme that surfaced in the way others later described those early years.

In a Google Books profile, Ethan's gaze was described as bearing the "soulful eyes of his father." The article framed fatherhood as both a grounding force and a mirror for Jackson, who was then reconciling fame, youth, and domestic life.

A Career Shaped by Loss, and a Family in Mourning

That era — one defined by artistic breakthroughs and private heartbreak — reshaped Jackson's work in profound ways. His critically acclaimed album "The Pretender," released months after Phyllis' death, has long been considered a meditation on grief and renewal.

Contemporary critics and biographers have noted that Ethan appears on the album's back cover, a symbolic gesture that connected the singer's personal and artistic worlds. As detailed in Los Angeles Magazine, the years surrounding the album's creation were defined by emotional upheaval that shaped Jackson's writing and deepened his focus on fatherhood.

No cause of death has been publicized. However, according to the statement, Ethan was found unresponsive at his home on the morning of November 25, 2025.

Jackson has offered no further details beyond the initial announcement, leaving the family to face this loss in private. What remains is the imprint of a life long intertwined with his own — a presence reflected in memories, in music, and in the chapters they shared across the years.