'The pain remains': Aussie music legend Nick Cave shares powerful reflection on grief, 10 years after the death of his teenage son Arthur

Sky News AU

24-07-2025

Nick Cave has shared a poignant letter in reflection of losing his teenage son, Arthur, after he tragically fell from a cliff and died in 2015.
The legendary Australian musician, 67, responded to fan questions on his website The Red Hand Files, where he regularly shares intimate letters on life, death and creativity.
In his latest post, Cave addressed two questions from readers: one from Carlos in Brazil, who asked what he and his wife, British fashion designer Susie Bick, had learned since Arthur's death, and another from Emma in Melbourne, who asked whether the pain ever goes away.
"The pain remains," Cave admitted.
"But I have found that it evolves over time. Grief blossoms with age, becoming less a personal affront, less a cosmic betrayal, and more a poetic quality of being as we learn to surrender to it."
He continued: "As we are confronted with the intolerable injustice of death, what seems unbearable ultimately turns out not to be unbearable at all. Sorrow grows richer, deeper, and more textured. It feels more interesting, creative, and lovely."
Arthur died on July 16, 2015 at age 15, after falling from a cliff in Brighton, England.
A coroner later ruled the death was accidental, with an inquest revealing Arthur had taken LSD with a friend before becoming disoriented and falling.
Despite the tragic circumstances, Cave said the experience taught him something surprising.
"I discovered through Arthur's death that I was part of a common human story," he wrote.
"I began to recognise the immense value and potential of our humanness while simultaneously acknowledging, at my core, our terrifyingly perilous situation. I learned we all actually die."
The Warracknabeal-born star also described how he and Susie, 58, eventually came to see the world differently.
"The world is not indifferent or cruel, but precious and loving- indeed, lovely- tilting ever toward good," he wrote.
He said that sorrow had become a way of life.
"Part laughter, part tears, with very little space between," he said.
Arthur and his twin brother Earl were born in 2000 in Brighton.
In a statement after the inquest, the Cave family said they were "overwhelmed" by the support they received.
"Arthur was a wonderfully unruly, creative and free-spirited young man with an infectious, happy, funny daredevil nature," it read.
"He loved his friends and family, idolised his twin brother Earl and was never far from his side."
The family relocated after Arthur's death, first to Los Angeles and later to London, with Cave saying Brighton had become "too sad".
However, Arthur's death is not the only loss Cave has endured.
In 2022, his eldest son, model and actor Jethro Lazenby, whom he shared with Australian model Beau Lazenby, died at age 31.
His cause of death was not disclosed.
In a 2024 interview with Leigh Sales for Australian Story, Cave admitted that these experiences profoundly shifted his outlook.
"Prior to their deaths, I was in awe of my own genius," he said.
"I just saw the folly of that… disgraceful sort of self-indulgence. I'm a father and I'm a husband and a grandfather and a kind of person of the world. These things are much more important to me than the concept of being an artist."
Cave said The Red Hand Files became a lifeline during his grief.
"The basic response to personal tragedy (is) to sort of shut down and harden around the absence of somebody," he said in an ABC interview.
"And this just kept me open."
He added: "We eventually absorb, or rearrange ourselves, so that we become creatures of loss as we get older; this is part of our fundamental fabric of what we are as human beings."
Alongside Earl, now 25 and working as an actor, Cave also has another son, Luke, 34, from his first marriage to Brazilian journalist Viviane Carneiro.
In May 2024, the Bad Seeds frontman became a grandfather when Luke and his wife, Sasha, welcomed a son, Roman.
Cave ended his letter with a poignant tribute to honour Arthur: "We remember him today … this whirling boy who is God, like every other thing."