Gypsy Rose Blanchard recently shared that she and her fiancé, Ken Urker, faced significant challenges in their relationship about a year prior to his untimely death.
Interestingly, the couple sought couples therapy during Season 2 of “Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up” and later reflected on that experience in a March 2025 interview.
Blanchard mentioned that therapy provided an unbiased perspective, which she found beneficial. “You don’t want to burden your family with your issues all the time,” she explained. “You really don’t want their opinions to sway or affect your relationship.”
She appreciated having an intermediary to listen to their viewpoints, admitting that they had areas in their relationship needing work. “We’ve been through a lot more than most couples,” she said, “and faced challenges that could break many couples. Yet, we still remain strong, and I honestly don’t see that changing.”
Her main hope from couples therapy was to foster open communication, saying, “I hope we can learn more and lower our defenses. I’ve built up walls over the years, like I think everyone does. It would be amazing to dismantle those and be as vulnerable as possible with each other.”
Tragically, Urker was found dead in his Louisiana home by a family member on his 34th birthday. The local sheriff’s office is looking into the circumstances surrounding his death, but Blanchard suspects it may have been an overdose, noting that he had been subjected to severe cyberbullying prior to passing.
“I can’t say whether it was intentional or not,” she shared, “but he was definitely not in a good place recently.” Blanchard also told TMZ that some substance was found, although she had never seen Urker use drugs before.
Urker’s sister, Autumn, tearfully stated in a TikTok Live that her brother did not die of natural causes. The couple had a one-year-old daughter, Aurora Raina, whom they welcomed in December 2024.
The couple began their relationship as pen pals back in 2017 while Blanchard was incarcerated for her involvement in the 2015 murder of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard.
They got engaged in October 2018, a year after they first met, but later broke up. Blanchard married Ryan Anderson in July 2022 while still serving her sentence, and after their divorce in 2024, she rekindled her relationship with Urker.
