Ken Urker, the ex-fiancé of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and father of her daughter, was found dead by police on Oct. 1 at a home in Louisiana. He was 34.
“We responded to a residence at 107 Double H Drive, Lot 4, in Raceland today after receiving a call at 6:15 p.m.,” the Lafource Parish Sherriff’s Office said in a statement to NBC News.
“Kenan Urker, 34, was found dead upon arrival. At this time, we are continuing the death investigation.”
It’s the latest twist in the relationship between Blanchard and Urker, who had navigated a rocky road over the course of their romance.
The pair met when Blanchard was still behind bars for her role in her allegedly abusive mother’s 2015 murder. Since then, they had gotten engaged, called it off, got back together and started a family. Blanchard was also married to another man in between those events.
“We honestly didn’t have a plan,” she told TODAY.com in 2025 about rekindling her relationship with Urker. “It was really one of those things that we’re winging. So, whenever it comes to the scrutiny, we just hold true to each other. We lean on each other for support. One has to be the strong one, and then the other has a moment of rest and weakness to just let all of that sink in.”
Blanchard is thought to be a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder where a “caregiver feigns, exaggerates or induces illness in (another person) with the primary goal being to get attention, sympathy and praise,” Dr. Marc Feldman, board-certified psychiatrist and author of “Dying to be Ill: True Stories of Medical Deception,” said in a previous interview with TODAY.com.
Read on to learn about them.
2017: A letter leads to love
After watching “Mommy Dead and Dearest,” a 2017 HBO documentary about the murder of Blanchard’s mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard,” as well as the abuse Gypsy Rose Blanchard suffered throughout her upbringing, Urker sent a letter to the then-inmate, who was serving a 10-year sentence at a Missouri state prison.
Nicholas Godejohn, Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s ex-boyfriend who carried out the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole after first pleading not guilty.
“I wrote him back and pretty soon we just started writing on a weekly basis,” Blanchard recalled in an interview with E! News. “We became fast friends. It was pretty soon after that that we started talking on the phone. We would spend hours on the phone. I talked to him like I had known him my whole life and vice versa.”
Though their budding relationship began platonically, things changed during Urker’s first face-to-face visit with Blanchard at the Chillicothe Correctional Center. That’s when they shared their first kiss, which Blanchard described to E! as “the most wonderful kiss” of her life.
October 2018: Blanchard and Urker get engaged
The pair grew closer in the year following that first meeting, and during an October 2018 prison visit, Urker popped the question.
Blanchard quoted the special moment in her 2024 memoir, “My Time to Stand.”
“‘Gypsy, I know you through and through and I love you for who you are today, for the heart I’ve come to know,’” she wrote of his proposal. “Then Ken motioned his hands over his chest, over his heart, and continued, ‘I want to spend every day waking up next to you, building a life with you, and being the one that you can come to through all the hard times. I want to be that one for you. Will you marry me?’”
She eagerly accepted.
August 2019: They break up a year later
Their engagement was over less than a year after it began — at least for a while.
In August of 2019, Urker broke up with Blanchard.
“There were many adults in his life, presumably much ‘wiser’ than he, who suggested it wasn’t the right time for me to be married,” Blanchard explained in her book. “‘If you love her, you’ll set her free,’ was the common piece of advice he’d hear again and again, sometimes from prominent Hollywood therapists and other media personalities — sometimes from those in my own immediate family. I see now, he believed he was acting in my best interest by sacrificing his own needs and wants.”
The pair reunited later that month, but the reunion didn’t last.
July 2022: She marries another man
Urker wasn’t the only man to reach out to Blanchard during her incarceration. Louisiana teacher Ryan Scott Anderson began corresponding with her sometime after her split from Urker, and things progressed quickly between Anderson and Blanchard.
They married at the Chillicothe Correctional Center on July 21, 2022.
In the Lifetime documentary, “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard,” Anderson referred to himself as “the Prince Charming that Gypsy has been waiting for her whole life.”
Blanchard was released from prison in December 2023, after serving eight years of her sentence. She and Anderson separated months later. In an interview with TODAY.com, Anderson said he was “blindsided” by the split.
Spring 2024: Blanchard and Urker reconnect
In the wake of that separation, Blanchard and her former fiancé, Urker, decided to give their relationship another try.
Urker took to Instagram on April 15, 2024, to share photos from an “incredible weekend” they’d spent together. The carousel of images included several smiling pics of the pair, as well as a glimpse of the matching husky dog tattoos they’d recently gotten to commemorate their bond.
July 2024: They’re expecting
Urker and Blanchard celebrated a surprise event in July of 2024 — a baby on the way.
“This was not planned at all. This was completely unexpected, but we’re both very excited to take on this new journey of parenthood,” Blanchard said in a now deleted TikTok, which TODAY.com reported at the time.
December 2024: Divorce and a new arrival
Blanchard and her estranged husband, Anderson, finalized their divorce Dec. 9, 2024.
“My marriage with Ryan taught me a lot about myself,” Blanchard told TODAY.com. “There was something Ryan said in Season 1 (of the Lifetime series ‘Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up’), ‘Life is not a fairy tale. It’s going to have its challenges.’ I didn’t understand that at the time. Now, after going through everything, I apply that to my relationship with Ken. We will have bad days, moments where we feel overwhelmed, but to not give up. Don’t just judge the whole relationship on that one day or that one argument.”
Less than three weeks later, on Dec. 28, Blanchard gave birth to a baby girl named Aurora.
Shortly after Aurora’s arrival, the new mom took to social media to announce that she would not be sharing images of their little girl’s face with her followers.
“To everyone asking, No, I will not be posting pictures of Aurora,” she wrote in an Instagram story. “I understand everyone’s excitement and we appreciate the support, but we value the privacy and safety of our daughter.”
March 2025: Appear on a reality show together
On March 10, 2025, a new season of “Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up” is set to debut, promising to give the public a closer look at Blanchard’s life since leaving her last relationship and starting a family with Urker.
Blanchard, who spoke to TODAY.com ahead of the premiere, shared what she hoped viewers would take away show.
“I want them to take away that everyone is growing in their life,” she said. “No one is completely finished evolving who they are. That’s what I was doing the whole season — building my character, learning about myself, discovering what I’m all about.”
