Inside Gypsy Rose Blanchard's 9-year relationship as Ken Urker dies aged 34
Here is everything you need to know about Gypsy Rose Blanchard's relationship with Ken Urker, after it was revealed that the 34-year-old had passed away at his home in Louisiana yesterday.
According to a report from TMZ, Urker was found unresponsive at his home yesterday (1 October), which also happened to be his birthday.
An investigation into his death is ongoing, with Blanchard telling reporters that she believes Urker died from an overdose.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Ken Urker's relationship
Blanchard and Urker first met while the 35-year-old was incarcerated for arranging to have her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, killed by her then-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn in 2015.
Urker decided to write to Blanchard in 2017, after watching the documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest, and the pair soon developed a romantic relationship. He would go on to propose in October 2018, with the couple breaking up less than a year later.
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After separating from Urker, Blanchard would go on to form a relationship with Ryan Scott Anderson, whom she later married in 2022 in a prison ceremony.
However, this relationship would be short-lived, as Blanchard separated from Anderson after being released, later deciding to rekindle her previous relationship with Urker. In December 2024, Blanchard gave birth to their first child, a young girl named Aurora.
The situation regarding being a mother who killed your own mum is a complex one, and Gypsy Rose has already begun planning out how she will tell her daughter what happened.
Blanchard previously addressed how becoming a mother and starring in her own reality show, Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up, helped her adjust to life outside of prison, telling LADbible the series had helped her re-entry into society.
She said: "It's helped in certain ways, because I feel like your viewers and the general public may have had some hesitancy about me coming out of prison.
“I think that the show has given viewers an opportunity to get to know me on a daily basis, because they are following my life, and so they're getting to see how I react to things, how I learn things, my joys, my hardships, they really get to know me without us being in the same room."
In addition to this, Gypsy Rose also spoke about how becoming a mother has changed her viewpoint on her own mum.
She said: “When I was pregnant, people kept telling me: 'You're gonna feel different. You're gonna go through some emotions. You're gonna feel triggered at some point.'
“Then it wasn't until after she was born, actually getting to hold her and look in her eyes and kind of that I have the responsibility to take care of her, that I am her mother.”
She went on to add: “That word changed overnight, and it went from ‘mother’ being a negative thing to a positive thing.
“I looked at her and I'm like, ‘I will protect you. I will love you, I will give you everything’… you will never know heartbreak from me."
In addition to LADbible’s exclusive interview, Gypsy Rose also appeared on ITV’s Loose Women.
When asked about her mother’s murder she called it a ‘lifelong regret’, saying: “I wish I had gone through other avenues, that is forever a lifelong regret, but unfortunately, hindsight is twenty-twenty, so I can't change the past.”
When asked if she feels guilty she replied: “Of course, I have to live with that every single day, and that's a lifelong sentence.
"I might have served eight and a half years in prison, but that is a lifelong sentence for me."
Speaking about her decision to rekindle things with Urker during a 2024 interview with E! News, Blanchard said: "It wasn't until I filed for divorce that I kind of really realised that that spark, that connection [with Urker] is even better than I expected.
"And we've grown a lot. I've matured. He's grown. And so I think right now is the time in our lives that it's the right time, right place, right everything."
Gypsy Rose Blanchard speaks out on Ken Urker's death
Following the news that Urker had passed away, Blanchard gave a statement to PEOPLE, telling reporters that she believed the father of her daughter had taken an overdose but was unsure whether or not it was intentional.
"I don’t know if it was intentional or not," she said. "He was not in a good state of mind lately.
"I’m in disbelief. I can’t think. I’ve screamed until my throat burns."
Paying tribute to Urker as a father, Blanchard added: "Ken was an amazing father and a man who was deeply loved. He will forever be my soulmate and my red string, a connection that time, distance, and even death can never erase."
Topics: Gypsy Rose Blanchard, True Crime, Parenting, TV and Film, Celebrity, Crime
Michael Slavin