Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s ex-husband said he was “shocked” by the recent death in Louisiana of his former partner Ken Urker – and that he would be there for Blanchard and her daughter “if she needed me”.
Ryan Anderson made the remarks during an appearance on The Sarah Fraser Show podcast on Friday, providing a remarkable reaction to the latest chapter involving Blanchard, who reached an unusual level of celebrity after spending time in prison for a role in the murder of his abusive mother.
Urker was found dead inside his Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, home Thursday, on his 34th birthday, in what was reported to the local sheriff’s office as an apparent drug overdose.
A report from the Lafourche Sheriff’s Office says Blanchard’s half-brother and his wife went to Urker’s home, saw him lying unconscious through an exterior window and called authorities. Officers reported that they then went to the house and – among other things – found syringes and a spoon “next to a brown powdery substance” in a bathroom.
Meanwhile, deputies also reported that Urker died in a bed next to a nightstand that had a syringe and a handgun on it.
Anderson told Sarah Fraser on Friday that her first reaction to the news of Urker’s death was one of disbelief.
“I was like, ‘No,’” Anderson, 40, said. “My first thought was shock, like, ‘Hmm, how did that happen?’ …Shocked that he died.
He also said that “my immediate thought went to” Blanchard, 32, and the 1-year-old daughter she had with Urker after she married Anderson.
Anderson conceded to Fraser that the “phone exchanges and … text messages” he had with Urker “were never good.” But he said he nevertheless contacted Blanchard’s father, Rod, after learning of Urker’s death.
“I said… ‘Tell Gypsy I’m sorry,'” Anderson said. “Tell her I’m here for her if she needs me.
Although Anderson said he “was always someone who could make her laugh when she was sad or comfort her,” he described not knowing whether Blanchard would accept his offer to be there for her as a friend “strictly.”
A statement from Blanchard on social media Friday said Urker “endured an unimaginable level of public surveillance and relentless cyberbullying on social media platforms, including TikTok and Reddit” before his death.
“The cruelty directed at him was something no human being should have to endure,” Blanchard wrote. “I believe the enormous weight of this surveillance and harassment had a profound impact on him, and I hope his passing reminds us that there is a real person behind every screen, every headline and every comment.”
Separately, in an interview with People published Friday, Blanchard said she didn’t know if Urker’s alleged overdose death was intentional.
Although Urker’s death was reported to the local sheriff’s office as an obvious drug overdose, a captain with the sheriff’s office said the case was still under investigation Friday. Capt. Brennan Matherne also said investigators on Friday found “no signs of foul play.”
Blanchard spent eight years in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in connection with the stabbing death of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, in 2015.
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.
Blanchard, who hid in a bathroom during her mother’s murder, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Godejohn, who Blanchard met online, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The murder of Dee Dee Blanchard gained attention after it was revealed that she forced Gypsy Rose to pretend she was seriously ill and undergo unnecessary medical procedures.
Blanchard met Urker while she was serving time in prison, from which she was released in late December 2023. She said on the We Need to Talk podcast in June that Urker made contact with her while incarcerated after watching Mommy Dead and Dearest, a 2017 documentary about Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee.
Urker proposed in October 2018. But the couple then ended their engagement — before reuniting in August 2019. They eventually broke up again and spent several years apart.
Then, in 2022, while still imprisoned, Blanchard married Anderson. She memorably spoke about her marriage to Anderson on ABC News 20/20 in January 2024, after her release from prison — and defended her audience by boasting about the intimate satisfaction her then-husband gave her.
Blanchard announced that she had split from Anderson about two months after that interview.
Blanchard and Urker rekindled their relationship in April 2024. Eight months later, they welcomed their daughter, Aurora, in late December 2024.
“Ken was an extraordinary father and a deeply loved man,” Blanchard wrote in his social media statement Friday. “He will forever be my soul mate and my common thread, a bond that time, distance and even death can never erase.”
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