{"id":919573,"date":"2026-10-03T22:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T22:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/919573\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T22:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T22:36:09","slug":"gypsy-rose-blanchards-former-husband-says-he-was-shocked-by-death-of-her-ex-partner-celebrity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/919573\/","title":{"rendered":"Gypsy Rose Blanchard\u2019s former husband says he was \u2018shocked\u2019 by death of her ex-partner | Celebrity"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ex-husband of Gypsy Rose Blanchard has said he was \u201cshocked\u201d by the recent death<\/a> in Louisiana of her former partner Ken Urker \u2013 and that he would be there for Blanchard and her daughter \u201cif she needs me\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ryan Anderson made those remarks during an appearance on The Sarah Fraser Show<\/a> podcast on Friday, providing a noteworthy reaction to the latest chapter involving Blanchard, who achieved an unusual level of celebrity in the US after spending time imprisoned for a role in the murder of her abusive mother in Missouri.<\/p>\n

Urker was found dead inside his Lafourche parish, Louisiana<\/a>, home on Thursday on his 34th birthday in what was reported to the local sheriff\u2019s office as an apparent drug overdose.<\/p>\n

A Lafourche sheriff\u2019s office report said Blanchard<\/a>\u2019s half-brother and his wife went to Urker\u2019s home, saw him lying unconscious through an outside window, and called authorities. Deputies reported that they then went into the home and \u2013 among other things \u2013 found syringes and a spoon \u201cnext to a brown powdery substance\u201d in a bathroom.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, deputies also reported, Urker was dead in a bed next to a nightstand on which was a syringe and a handgun.<\/p>\n

Anderson on Friday told Sarah Fraser that his initial reaction to the news of Urker\u2019s death was one of disbelief.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018No,\u2019\u201d Anderson, 40, said. \u201cMy initial thought was shock, like, \u2018Hmm, how\u2019d that happen?\u2019 \u2026 Shocked that he passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said \u201cmy immediate thought went to\u201d Blanchard, 32, and the one-year-old daughter she had with Urker after her marriage to Anderson.<\/p>\n

Anderson conceded to Fraser that \u201cexchanges on the phone and \u2026 text messages\u201d that he had with Urker \u201cwere never good\u201d. But he said he nonetheless reached out to Blanchard\u2019s father, Rod, after learning of Urker\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said \u2026 \u2018Tell Gypsy I\u2019m sorry,\u2019\u201d Anderson recounted. \u201cTell her I\u2019m here for her if she needs me.<\/p>\n

Though Anderson said he \u201cwas always somebody who could make her laugh when she was sad or give her comfort\u201d, he described being unsure whether Blanchard would take him up on his offer to be there for her as a friend \u201cstrictly\u201d.<\/p>\n

A social media statement from Blanchard on Friday said Urker \u201cendured an unimaginable level of public scrutiny and relentless cyberbullying across social media platforms, including TikTok and Reddit\u201d before his death.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cruelty directed toward him was something no human being should have to endure,\u201d Blanchard wrote. \u201cI believe the tremendous weight of that scrutiny and harassment had a profound impact on him, and I hope his passing serves as a reminder that there is a real person behind every screen, every headline, and every comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separately, in an interview with People<\/a> published on Friday, Blanchard said she did not know whether Urker\u2019s suspected overdose death was intentional.<\/p>\n

Despite Urker\u2019s death being reported to the local sheriff\u2019s office as an evident drug overdose, a sheriff\u2019s office captain said the case remained under investigation as of Friday. Capt Brennan Matherne also said that investigators as of Friday had not discovered \u201cany signs of foul play\u201d.<\/p>\n

Blanchard spent eight years in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in connection with the 2015 stabbing death of her mother, Clauddine \u201cDee Dee\u201d Blanchard.<\/p>\n

Dee Dee Blanchard was found stabbed to death in her home in Springfield, Missouri, in June 2015. Gypsy Rose Blanchard gave her then boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, a knife that he used to kill her mother.<\/p>\n

Blanchard, who hid in a bathroom during her mother\u2019s slaying, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Godejohn, whom Blanchard met online, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.<\/p>\n

Dee Dee Blanchard\u2019s murder drew widespread attention after it was revealed that she had forced Gypsy Rose to pretend she was seriously ill and undergo unnecessary medical procedures.<\/p>\n

Blanchard met Urker while serving her sentence in prison, from which she was released in late December 2023. She said on the We Need to Talk podcast in June that Urker had gotten in touch with her while she was incarcerated after he watched Mommy Dead and Dearest, a 2017 documentary about Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee.<\/p>\n

Urker proposed in October 2018. But the pair later ended their engagement \u2013 before reuniting in August 2019. They eventually broke up again and spent several years apart.<\/p>\n

Then, in 2022, while she was still imprisoned, Blanchard married Anderson. She memorably spoke<\/a> about her marriage to Anderson on the ABC News show 20\/20 in January 2024, after her prison release \u2013 and defended her public boasting about the intimate satisfaction her then husband provided her.<\/p>\n

Blanchard announced that she had separated from Anderson about two months after that interview.<\/p>\n

Blanchard and Urker rekindled their relationship in April 2024. Eight months later, they welcomed their daughter, Aurora, in late December 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cKen was an amazing father and a man who was deeply loved,\u201d Blanchard wrote in her social media statement on Friday. \u201cHe will forever be my soulmate and my red string, a connection that time, distance and even death can never erase.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ex-husband of Gypsy Rose Blanchard has said he was \u201cshocked\u201d by the recent death in Louisiana of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-919573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}