Gypsy-Rose Blanchard speaks out after ex-fiance, Ken Urker, found dead at 33
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Gypsy-Rose Blanchard has shared her heartbreak following the tragic death of her ex-fiancé and the father of her child, Ken Urker, at the age of 33.
In a statement to TMZ, Blanchard, 35, said Urker “will forever be my soulmate and my red string, a connection that time, distance, and even death can never erase”.
Gypsy-Rose Blanchard and Ken Urker shared one-year-old daughter Aurora. Instagram/@gypsyrose_a_blanchard
She went on to claim that Urker was “relentlessly cyberbullied” online before his death and endured an “unimaginable level of public scrutiny”, adding the “cruelty directed toward him was something no human being should have to endure”.
“Ken was an amazing father and a man who was deeply loved,” the statement continued.
She added that regarding their daughter, Aurora, she “will make sure she grows up knowing how deeply her father loved her and who he was beyond what strangers on the internet chose to say about him”.
Urker’s family told TMZ he was found unresponsive on Thursday in Louisiana, on his birthday. His cause of death has not been confirmed.
According to TMZ’s family sources, Blanchard texted Urker “Happy Birthday” but did not receive a reply. Later that day, Blanchard’s brother Dylan reportedly discovered Kurker in the home.
The Lafourche Sherriff’s Office said in a statement to E! News: “We were notified about this at 6:15pm CDT and responded. He was found dead upon arrival. At this time, we are continuing the death investigation.”
Blanchard and Urker share a daughter, Aurora Raina Urker, one.
The couple had an on-off relationship for over a decade.
Blanchard and Urker had an on-off relationship of the course of a decade. Instagram/@Gypsy Rose Blanchard
They first connected as prison pen pals in 2017.
Blanchard was serving her 10-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the 2015 killing of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard.
Then they were engaged in October 2018 before splitting up in August 2019.
During their separation, Blanchard married and later separated from Ryan Anderson.
Blanchard and Urker rekindled their romance in April 2024 after her release from prison and split from Anderson.
They split again in late 2026, reportedly over the legal complexity regarding paternity laws due to Blanchard’s divorce from her ex-husband.
A prenatal DNA test officially confirmed Urker as the biological father.
Blanchard and Urker were together for a total of four-and-a-half years over their on-off romance. Instagram/@gypsyrose_a_blanchard
Blanchard became known globally after she was the victim of severe medical child abuse and later plotted with her boyfriend to murder her mother.
She endured medical and psychological abuse from Dee Dee, who suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy and fabricated chronic illnesses such as leukaemia and muscular dystrophy.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, Munchausen by proxy syndrome – now clinically referred to as factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA) – is a serious form of abuse where a caregiver fabricates, exaggerates, or induces physical or mental illness in a person under their care.
Dee Dee forced her daughter to use a wheelchair, a feeding tube, and undergo years of unnecessary surgeries and isolation.
Gypsy’s served 10 years in prison for the second-degree murder of her mother Dee Dee, whom from she suffered years of medical and physical abuse. 9Now
Desperate to escape her mother, Blanchard conspired with her then online boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, to kill Dee Dee.
In June 2015, Blanchard provided Godejohn with the knife used to stab Dee Dee to death.
Acknowledging the extreme, lifelong abuse Blanchard suffered, prosecutors allowed her to plead guilty to second-degree murder in 2016, for which she served eight years of a 10-year sentence before being released on parole in December 2023.
Blanchard’s case captivated the public.
Its stranger-than-fiction story inspired HBO’s documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest and Hulu’s dramatised series The Act.
Subsequently, she built a massive public following while she was still incarcerated.
Upon her release from prison in December 2023, Blanchard gained millions of social media followers overnight, made major press appearances, and starred in her own Lifetime docuseries like The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up.
