Key Takeaways
- Ryan Anderson said he felt “shock,” anger, and sadness after learning that Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s fiancé, Ken Urker, had died at 34.
- Despite his tense history with Urker, Anderson contacted Blanchard’s father to offer support and said he worries about Blanchard and her daughter, Aurora.
- Blanchard said Urker overdosed and cited relentless cyberbullying as a possible factor, while authorities said the investigation remained ongoing and had not identified a cause of death.
Ryan Anderson didn’t believe Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s former fiancé, Ken Urker, was dead until a friend sent him the report.
“My initial thought was shock, of course, like how’d that happen?” Anderson, her ex-husband, said on the Oct. 2 episode of The Sarah Fraser Show.
Urker, who was also the father of Blanchard’s daughter, was found dead on his 34th birthday a day earlier—and Anderson said the news sent him looking for a way to check on the woman he had not spoken to in roughly a year.
Anderson and Urker had their own history, and little of it was friendly. They never met face-to-face, he said, but had exchanged phone calls and text messages that “were never good.”
Still, their problems did not change his reaction to Urker’s death. “I have reasons to dislike him. But you still don’t want to hear that he passed away,” Anderson said to Fraser.
His thoughts quickly turned to Blanchard and their daughter, Aurora. “My immediate thought was, ‘How’s Gypsy?’” he said. “I definitely feel for his family. I feel for Aurora. I worry about Aurora.”
Rather than contact Blanchard directly, Anderson texted her father, Rod. “I’m hearing this news. If it’s true, tell Gypsy I’m sorry,” he recalled writing. Then came a second message: “Tell her that I’m here for her if she needs me.”
Anderson said Rod agreed to pass it along.
Asked whether he would answer if Blanchard called, Anderson said he would offer support. “In the past, I was always somebody who could make her laugh when she was sad or give her comfort,” he explained. He said their last contact had been around September 2025.
His remarks came after Blanchard told People that Urker overdosed, saying she did not know what he had taken or whether it was intentional. She also described “relentless cyberbullying” she believed had a “profound impact” on him.
Anderson said he recognized the strain of being discussed online. “People seem to forget that we are human and we do have feelings and we do see what people say about us,” he told Fraser.
He acknowledged, however, that he had not spoken with Urker about it: “I don’t know if they got to him or not.”
Anderson and Blanchard separated before she reunited with Urker in April 2024. Urker had first proposed in 2018 while Blanchard was incarcerated, but they later separated. After her December 2023 prison release and split from Anderson, their reunion became part of her public life, including Lifetime’s Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up.
They welcomed Aurora in December 2024. In her tribute, Blanchard called Urker “an amazing father” and promised their daughter would know him beyond what strangers said online.
The Lafourche Sheriff’s Office said deputies found Urker dead at a Raceland, Louisiana, residence after responding around 6:15 p.m. Oct. 1. Its initial statement said the investigation remained ongoing and did not identify a cause.
Anderson acknowledged he had no firsthand knowledge of what happened but shared his initial feelings on the subject: “I feel anger. I feel sadness.”
He also said he wanted to give Urker’s family space to grieve. “This situation isn’t about me in any way,” he told Fraser. “Despite what I thought of him, I hate that this happened.”
