EXCLUSIVE: Jeff Buckley's Mother FINALLY Breaks Her Silence About Tragic Son Ahead of 30th Anniversary of His Drowning Death
Jeff Buckley's life and career is highlighted in a new documentary.
Dec. 13 2025, Published 3:00 p.m. ET
Mary Guibert has broken her silence ahead of the 30th anniversary of Jeff Buckley's death, rejecting rumors about her son's final moments and recalling the fearless spirit that shaped his short life and enduring legacy.
RadarOnline.com can reveal Guibert, 77, who has guarded her iconic singer-songwriter son's archive for nearly three decades, spoke as a new documentary about the singer approaches release, marking his drowning in Memphis on May 29, 1997, at the age of 30.
'These Are the True Remains of Jeff Buckley'
Mary Guibert broke her silence ahead of the 30th anniversary of Buckley's death.
The doc, It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley, directed by Amy Berg, is currently out and explores Buckley's childhood, career, and sudden death.
Guibert said she waited years before agreeing to participate in a documentary about her boy, only feeling ready in 2019 to allow Buckley's footage and music to be used.
"I'm a mum; and I'm still a mum," she said quietly, speaking from her home in northern California beneath a photograph of Grace, the 1994 album that made her son a cult figure admired by artists including Bob Dylan and David Bowie.
After his death, Guibert went through his label's archives.
She added: "I said, ‘These are the true remains of Jeff Buckley.'"
Buckley 'Took His Life in His Hands'
Buckley’s father, Tim, was also a singer.
When Buckley was a toddler, Guibert would drive to the ocean, where he would tear toward the waves without hesitation. His fearlessness followed him into adulthood.
While on tour in Australia, he sprinted toward dangerous surf as a horrified record executive yelled: "No! Those waves are deadly!"
He also once climbed a towering stack of speakers during a French festival just to get a better view of Led Zeppelin.
"He took his life in his hands," Guibert has now admitted about his death-defying nature. "We are who we are at birth, and not to go to the morbid because we know how it ends, but that's the way he approached life."
Buckley's instinctive leap into the Wolf River the fatal night of his death in Memphis – fully clothed, and without drugs or alcohol in his system – was, she said, simply part of that nature. His body was found days later.
She sorted through his label’s archives and called them the true remains of her son.
The still-grieving mom also explained how deeply music ran in her boy from childhood. "Music was something that ran very, very deep down in Jeff's soul – bless his heart," she said.
"I have photos of him at just three, singing I'm a Little Teacup."
Buckley was born after a brief relationship between Guibert and the folk singer Tim Buckley, who died of a heroin overdose at 28.
Jeff grew up with his stepfather, Ron Moorhead. "As far as he was concerned, his dad was Ron Moorhead," Guibert declared.
Tim never sent a birthday or Christmas card. Yet Jeff eventually confronted his father's legacy, performing one of Tim's songs, I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain, at a 1991 tribute to his dad.
"It was really a big thing for him," Guibert said of the moment. "He had to learn his father's songs even better than his father sang them, but he had his own voice."
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Rejecting Suicide Rumors
Guibert explained that her son grew up viewing Ron Moorhead (not pictured) as his real father.
Jeff's only released studio album, Grace, sold two million copies, propelled by his celebrated cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. But fame weighed heavily.
"All that adoration? It's a vampire coming towards you, and I have yet to meet a famous individual for whom that is not a burden," Guibert said.
As rumors about her son's state of mind at the time of his death resurface with the documentary, Guibert is challenging claims he had been despondent.
"And so all the gossip," she said, "all the nattering nabobs of negativism who think that he walked into the water as this despondent person? Not at all. He planned to move to Europe or Australia. That's what he was going to do."
