Updated October 2, 2026, 8:20 a.m. ET
Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s partner, Ken Urker, has died. He died on his 34th birthday.
Blanchard confirmed Urker’s death in a statement to TMZ on Thursday evening, October 2. The media was the first to announce his death.
“Ken was an extraordinary father and a deeply loved man,” she said, adding that he “will forever be my soul mate and my common thread, a bond that time, distance and even death can never erase.”
USA TODAY has reached out to Blanchard’s representatives for comment.
How did Ken Urker die?
Blanchard told People magazine that Urker died of an overdose in his bed at his home in Louisiana. “I don’t know if it was intentional or not,” Blanchard said. “He hasn’t been in a good state of mind lately.”
She told TMZ that Urker faced an “unimaginable level of public scrutiny” and “relentless cyberbullying” on social media, which had a “profound impact” on him.
“The cruelty towards him was something no human being should have to endure,” she continued.
The couple welcomed their daughter Aurora Raina Urker in December 2024. Blanchard vowed to make sure Aurora knew “how deeply her father loved her and who he was beyond what strangers on the internet chose to say about him.”
Urker and Blanchard met as prison pen pals during the “My Time to Stand” author’s nearly eight-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder related to his role in the 2015 death of his mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. She was released on parole in December 2023, which she completed in June 2025.
Urker first proposed to Blanchard in October 2018, but called off their engagement before getting together in August 2019 and later reconciling, according to People.
The two then separated again and Blanchard married Ryan Scott Anderson in July 2022 at the Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri during his sentence. Blanchard and Anderson separated in March 2024 and finalized their divorce in December 2024.
Following her split from Anderson, Blanchard rekindled her romance with Urker in April 2024.
“I’ve been in love with Ken since the day we first met,” she told People in a September 2025 interview. “We’ve been through more than most couples and had challenges that would break many couples apart, but we’re still strong, and I don’t see that ever changing.”
Blanchard rose to fame through her highly publicized murder trial. In 2016, Blanchard, then 24, pleaded guilty to conspiring with her boyfriend Nick Godejohn, who fatally stabbed Dee Dee on June 9, 2015.
The murder followed years of Dee forcing Munchausen’s vicarious victim Blanchard to use a wheelchair and undergo intense and unnecessary medical treatments to bolster a fabricated leukemia diagnosis.
The events led to the 2017 HBO documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest” and the 2019 Hulu limited drama series “The Act” starring Joey King and Patricia Arquette.
Contributor: Taijuan Moorman, USA TODAY
If you or someone you know is suffering from mental and/or substance use disorders, you can call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s free and confidential referral and information service at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). He is available 24/7 in English and Spanish (TTY: 1-800-487-4889).
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