Gypsy Rose Blanchard has opened up about the couples therapy she and Ken Urker underwent in the year before his death.
Blanchard, 33, and Urker, 34, worked with a therapist during Season 2 of “Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up,” a process they later discussed in a March 2025 interview. The reality star explained that she valued having an outside perspective on their relationship struggles.
“I like it because it gives an unbiased opinion,” she said in that interview. “Because you don’t want to go to your family all the time to talk about the bad stuff. You never want to have anybody going, ‘Oh, I think…’ You don’t want their opinions to be changed or affected or a bias or anything.”
She added that it was “nice for [them] to have someone in the middle” to hear both sides, acknowledging that there were definite aspects they needed to “improve.”
The couple’s history was marked by unusual circumstances from the start. They began as pen pals in 2017 while Blanchard was serving time for her role in the 2015 murder of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. Urker proposed in October 2018, just one year after they first connected, but the engagement eventually ended. Blanchard went on to marry Ryan Anderson in July 2022 while still incarcerated, then divorced him in 2024 before rekindling her romance with Urker.
“We have been through more than most couples have and have had challenges that would break many couples,” Blanchard admitted in the March interview. “But we still stand strong, and I don’t ever see that changing.”
Her stated goal for the therapy sessions was to build more open communication between them. She hoped they could “get even more knowledge and let down our walls,” recognizing that she had built protective barriers over many years.
“I’ve built walls over many years, and I think everybody has a set of walls that they put up,” she said. “So I think it would be wonderful for us to bring those down and be the most vulnerable that we’ve ever been with each other. That would be my goal.”
The couple welcomed daughter Aurora Raina in December 2024, when their baby girl was about one year old at the time of Urker’s death. Their family life was unfolding publicly even as they dealt with private struggles.
Urker was found dead in his bed at his Raceland, Louisiana, home by a family member last Thursday, which happened to be his 34th birthday. The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating the circumstances of his death.
Blanchard said she suspects an overdose, though she had never previously seen him take drugs. She also noted he had been experiencing severe cyberbullying before his passing and was not in “a good state of mind lately.”
“I don’t know if it was intentional or not,” she said.
Urker’s sister, Autumn, made her own statement in a tearful TikTok Live, alleging that her brother did not die “of natural causes.” The family is awaiting further information from the ongoing investigation.
Blanchard and Urker’s relationship, which spanned from prison correspondence to co-parenting, was documented across multiple reality television seasons and numerous interviews. Their reconnection after her divorce from Anderson appeared to represent a second chance for both, one they actively worked to maintain through professional counseling.
The March interview now stands as one of Blanchard’s final public reflections on their partnership, capturing her hope that they could continue strengthening their bond despite the extraordinary pressures they faced.