Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s ex-fiance, Ken Urker death: found dead at the age of 33

Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s ex-fiancé, Ken Urker, has died. He was 33.

Urker’s family told TMZ he was found unresponsive on Thursday in Louisiana, on his birthday.

According to TMZ’s family sources, Blanchard texted Urker “Happy Birthday” but did not receive a reply. Later that day, Blanchard’s brother Dylan reportedly discovered Kurker in the home.

The Lafourche Sherriff’s Office said in a statement to E! News: “We were notified about this at 6:15 p.m. CDT and responded. He was found dead upon arrival. At this time, we are continuing the death investigation.” 

His cause of death has not been revealed. 

Blanchard and Urker share a daughter, Aurora Raina Urker, one.

The couple had an on-off relationship for over a decade.

They first connected as prison pen pals in 2017.

Blanchard was serving her 10-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the 2015 killing of her mother, Clauddine ‘Dee Dee’ Blanchard.

Then they were engaged in October 2018 before splitting up in August 2019.

During their separation, Blanchard married and later separated from Ryan Anderson.

Blanchard and Urker rekindled their romance in April 2024 after her release from prison and split from Anderson.

They split again in late 2026, reportedly over the legal complexity regarding paternity laws due to Gypsy’s divorce from her ex-husband.

A prenatal DNA test officially confirmed Urker as the biological father.

Gypsy-Rose Blanchard became known globally after she was the victim of severe medical child abuse who later plotted with her boyfriend to murder her mother Clauddine ‘Dee Dee’ Blanchard.

She endured medical and psychological abuse from Dee Dee, who suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy and fabricated chronic illnesses such as leukemia and muscular dystrophy.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, Munchausen by proxy syndrome – now clinically referred to as factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA) – is a serious form of abuse where a caregiver fabricates, exaggerates, or induces physical or mental illness in a person under their care.

Dee Dee forced Gypsy to use a wheelchair, a feeding tube, and undergo years of unnecessary surgeries and isolation.

Desperate to escape her mother, Gypsy conspired with her then online boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn to kill Dee Dee.

In June 2015, Gypsy provided Godejohn with the knife used to stab Dee Dee to death.

Acknowledging the extreme, lifelong abuse Gypsy suffered, prosecutors allowed her to plead guilty to second-degree murder in 2016, for which she served eight years of a 10-year sentence before being released on parole in December 2023.

Blanchard’s case captivated the public. Its stranger-than-fiction story inspired HBO’s documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest and Hulu’s dramatized series The Act.

Subsequently she built a massive public following while she was still incarcerated.

Upon her release from prison in December 2023, Blanchard gained millions of social media followers overnight, made major press appearances, and starred in her own Lifetime docuseries like The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up.