Actor and model Ethan Browne’s cause of death has been revealed.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner confirmed on Tuesday, January 13, that Ethan, the son of songwriter Jackson Browne, died from the “effects of fentanyl, methamphetamine and lidocaine,” per documents obtained by Us Weekly.
The medical examiner ruled that the manner of death accidental. He was 52.
Jackson, 77, shared the news of his son’s death in November 2025.
“It is with deep sorrow that we share that on the morning of November 25, 2025, Ethan Browne, the son of Jackson Browne and Phyllis Major, was found unresponsive in his home and has passed away,” a statement shared via Jackson’s Facebook read on November 26, 2025. “We ask for privacy and respect for the family during this difficult time. No further details are available at this moment.”
Jackson and Major welcomed Ethan in 1973, three years before Major committed suicide at age 30. Jackson later tied the knot with Lynee Sweeney in 1981, welcoming son Ryan the following year before their divorce in 1983.
Ethan grew up following in his father’s footsteps by pursuing a career in Hollywood. He was just 1-year-old when he graced the cover of Rolling Stone in 1974 alongside Jackson, where the songwriter held his son in his arms while nuzzling into his face. The 1995 film Hackers would later serve as Ethan’s feature film debut. In 2002, he appeared on the 2002 TV show Birds of Prey before being cast in 2004’s Raising Helen alongside Kate Hudson.
According to Mark Ronson’s 2025 memoir Night People: How to Be a DJ in ‘90s New York City, Ethan was also a working actor and was featured in campaigns for designers like Isaac Mizrahi before his death. Ronson recalled meeting Ethan in his book, describing him as “the real deal” who has the “sharp cheekbones” of his late mother and “an angular face and soulful gaze that seemed to reveal his deepest truths, even from a glossy page.”
Ethan was also a dad himself, welcoming a daughter before his death.
“Ethan is a great father. He’s a great son, a great man. I love seeing him with his kids,” Jackson gushed of his son in a May 2022 interview with Tru Rock Revival. “When I see him in his movies, modeling, with his daughter, and being such a great dad, it makes me very proud. It makes me feel I’ve done something really right in my life.”
Jackson has been candid about how his own “main focus” became fatherhood after Major’s death.
“I only had two things that I hoped I could fit together: being a songwriter and a father. And I looked at it like this, if I have to only be a father, I hope I’ll know it, and just do that,” the “These Days” songwriter said in an interview with Route magazine in June 2021. “But life’s not like that and you don’t get a notice in the mail saying you’re blowing it as a parent. You think you have the advice and the help you need, and sometimes you don’t, or you don’t heed it.”
He continued, “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.”
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