Melissa Etheridge says they're "still finding kids from David Crosby out in the world"

Today in “Um, did we really need to know that?” news, Melissa Etheridge has revealed that David Crosby—the biological father of two of her four children—was a sperm donor for a currently unknown amount of kids. Why was a rockstar donating sperm with such frequency? Why did Etheridge feel the need to reveal this information now, more than a year after his death? While actually kind of a sweet story—the way Etheridge tells it—it might be one of those things that didn’t need to be shared in a public forum.

Ahead of her docuseries Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken, the musician was explaining to People that she and her partner at the time, Julie Cypher, were looking for a sperm donor that wouldn’t be anonymous but wouldn’t be the kids’ actual dad either. Her friend Crosby had just had a son (his fourth child) with the help of fertility treatments, and he and his wife “wanted to pay it forward,” according to Etheridge. But Etheridge was not the only beneficiary of this type of generosity, apparently. “We’re still finding kids from David Crosby out in the world. My daughter’s like, ‘I have another half-sister,’” she revealed.

Truthfully, it’s not totally clear here if Crosby was a sperm donor in the traditional sense, or if maybe, um, he was out sowing his wild oats as a touring musician and happened to father more children than previously known. One of his sons he “knew nothing about until 1994,” per a 2000 Rolling Stone article, so that might be the case elsewhere. Etheridge sort of makes it sound like he took it upon himself as a beneficiary of fertility treatments to help others in need (of sperm), but it could just as easily mean her daughter has been firing up 23andMe and finding previously undiscovered Crosbys out there.

Crosby was clearly happy to help out his friends, as he told Rolling Stone in 2000. “Melissa and Julie are good people. Nice set of values, they’re funnier than shit, and they’ve got courage. All rare stuff,” he said. “You could see that they were in love with each other.”

“He did not need to be [a father]. And that’s what really made it clear for me, was that he was willing to say, ‘Yeah, I was the biological father.’ And my kids call him bio dad, so he’s the biological father, but they didn’t need a relationship with him,” Etheridge told People. After Crosby’s death in January 2023, she posted a tribute to the artist on social media, writing, “I am grieving the loss of my friend, and Bailey’s and Beckett’s biological father, David. He gave me the gift of family. I will forever be grateful to him, [son] Django, and [wife] Jan. His music and legacy will inspire many generations to come. A true treasure.”