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The troubled son of legendary singer Nick Cave had been facing more criminal charges when he died inside a grim $100-a-night motel.
Jethro Lazenby died aged 32 on Friday – a day after his release from jail – at the Coburg Motor Inn in Melbourne’s north, barely two months after violently assaulting his mother over an argument about cigarettes.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal Lazenby had spent a large proportion of his life in and out of custody as his life spiralled out of control in a haze of illicit drugs.
Lazenby had previously spoken about his tough upbringing on the streets of Collingwood. Pictured above towards the end of his life.
The Coburg Motor Inn where Jethro Lazenby was found dead on Friday – a $100-per-night three-star accommodation in Melbourne’s north
Nick Cave performs in France last year. He did not meet Jethro Lazenby until the child was aged 7
He had been a successful model as a teenager, strutting along catwalks across Europe before his epic fall from grace around 2012.
At the time of Lazenby’s tragic deathl he had been awaiting sentence over a series of petty thefts and a savage attack on his mum Lee-Anne Lazenby.
While released on bail on Thursday last week, the disgraced ex-model was not expected to remain on the streets very long.
It can be revealed Lazenby had a shocking criminal history, which had seen him prosecuted over a swag of petty thefts, drug crimes and domestic violence.
Upon his passing inside the dingy motel, he had been facing further allegations of assault, domestic violence and petty thefts.
Getting advice from me is like being measured by the undertaker. Nick Cave, 2015
Lazenby had wound-up at the motel after the court forbid him from residing with his mother.
By now a dishevelled wreck, it remains unclear why Lazenby was unable to return to the Carlton apartment of his famous father, where he had lived at least up until 2018.
It was the address he had been bailed to live at after being charged with the brutal assault of his then girlfriend.
Back then, the court heard Lazenby had struck his terrified partner in the face after a squabble over money.
Lazenby had threatened to murder the woman after kicking her onto a couch and twisting her arm behind her back.
The pair had been brought to police attention earlier that day after a fight over drugs.
At the time, police had opposed Lazenby’s bail due his disgraceful criminal history, which had seen him blatantly disregard court orders.
On one occasion, Lazenby had returned to assault his girlfriend immediately after being released on bail.
Jethro Lazenby had been reduced to stealing food from a 7-Eleven store in his tragic last months of life
One guest posted a picture of the hotel’s pool which appeared uncleaned and even had graffiti
Jethro Lazenby had once graced the catwalks across the globe as an up-and-coming model
His half brother, Arthur, 15, had died in a tragic accident three years earlier.
Just three months before Arthur fell from a cliff in the United Kingdom during an LSD trip-gone-wrong, the boys’ father had spoken about his views on parenting his four sons.
When asked by his German interviewer, a nervous Cave said he did not go out of his way to tell his children how to live their lives.
‘I’m pretty easy going about things, I dunno, we watch a lot of sh*t on the tv,’ he said.
‘I just do what I’m supposed to do. I do a lot of it. I really like spending time with my kids, whether I’m a benefit to them? You know whether I’m moving them in the right direction or … I’m not so concerned with that.’
Cave was insistent that all of his boys knew that he loved them.
‘But I don’t know if I see it as my role, or I don’t see it as any parent’s role, to be influencing … the thinking of their children. I think if parents stood back a little bit and allowed their children to develop, it would probably be better for the children,’ he said.
Cave said parents needed to trust their children to make the right decisions.
‘Getting advice from me is like being measured by the undertaker,’ Cave said.
Lazenby had the world at his feet in the early 2000s when he managed to score some top modelling jobs on the back of his famous father’s name.
He opened the Mercedes Australian Fashion Week in Sydney in April 2006 when he was just 15-years of age.
He had debuted a year earlier in his hometown of Melbourne at at Melbourne Fashion Week.
By 2009 Lazenby had made waves across the ocean in Paris and Milan and appeared destined for greatness.
‘The scion of legendary rocker Nick Cave surfaced on the scene last year with an impossible-to-miss look — namely, his half-shaved/half-long-locked coif that mimics it-girl Alice Dellal,’ fashion mags wrote about him.
In 2012, Lazenby, then aged 19, spoke of his rough life growing up without a father, whom he only met at age 7.
‘I haven’t had the easiest life,’ he told the Evening Standard then. ‘It didn’t start off that great, having all this shit with my dad and being in his shadow.’
It was about the same time Myer had dumped him from its fashion show due to his ‘erratic behaviour’ at a rehearsal.
In the years that followed, Lazenby dropped off the fashion world’s radar as he sank into the grime of Melbourne’s grubby drug culture.
On Tuesday, the woman who raised him quietly mourned his loss with friends at a local beer hall.
Lazenby’s devastated mum Lee-Anne ‘Beau’ Lazenby joined two friends down the road from her Collingwood home, just outside of Melbourne’s CBD, to remember her troubled son over a glass of red.
Ms Lazenby appeared relaxed having a quiet drink with her friends but was visibly shaken upon taking a phone call.
Lee-Anne Lazenby makes a call outside Collingwood’s Stomping Ground Beer Hall on Tuesday
She declined to comment when approached by Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday afternoon.
Court documents released to Daily Mail Australia provided insight into the despair Cave’s tormented son had experienced before Victoria Police detectives took him into custody.
On November 1 last year, police arrested Lazenby after he was caught shoplifting from a CBD 7-Eleven.
A desperate Lazenby had stolen a packet of chili beef jerky and a bag of Smith’s chips, worth a paltry $12.50.
Later that day he was busted stealing food again, this time helping himself to two meat pies and a Smoothie.
The total of his illicit bounty cost just $11.
Lazenby would be jailed in March amid allegations he bashed his Melbourne-based former model mother after she refused to buy him a pack of smokes.
The brutal attack inside her Collingwood home had left left her bloodied and bruised.
He had already been free on bail when he assaulted his long suffering mum, who had hooked up with Cave in about 1990.
The court heard Lazenby was on bail when his mum found him on her front porch just after midnight on March 7.
Ms Lazenby made up a bed for him after he convinced her to let him stay the night.
Nick and Suzie Cave at the UK premier of the True History of the Kelly Gang in 2020
The court heard his concerned mum had locked herself in her bedroom that night, but things went bad the following morning when Lazenby demanded she go and buy him cigarettes.
‘While standing in front of the victim, the accused has then reached forward and grabbed both the victim’s shoulders with his hands,’ a police summary read.
‘He lunged forward and kneed the victim to the face and nose, causing bleeding and bruising.’
His terrified mum ran to a nearby pub and called police upon him leaving her home.
Lazenby, who had been held within Melbourne’s notorious Melbourne Remand Centre, was granted bail on the condition he undergo substance abuse treatment and avoid contact with his mum for two years.
‘I do say to you that it’s entirely in your best interests to participate with all support services that I’ve set-up for you,’ Magistrate Donna Bakos told him.
‘It’s very very important that your path to rehabilitation will be a much more positive one and therefore you will be less of a risk to the community at large and in particular to your mother.’
Lazenby is expected to be farewelled in a private ceremony over the coming weeks.
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