Gypsy Rose Blanchard's boyfriend Ken Urker explains why he called off first engagement

10 March 2025, 17:46 | Updated: 10 March 2025, 19:08

Gypsy Rose Blanchard's boyfriend Ken Urker explains why he called off their engagement 6 years ago. Picture: @gypsyrose.ig via Instagram

By Katie Louise Smith

Gypsy and boyfriend Ken Urker got engaged in 2018 but he called it off a few months later following the public scrutiny surrounding their relationship.

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Gypsy Rose Blanchard's boyfriend Ken Urker has explained why he dumped her and called off their engagement after they first went public with their relationship back in 2018.

In case you're not up to date with Gypsy-Rose's personal life, she reunited with ex-fiancé Ken last year after splitting from husband Ryan Anderson 3 months after she was released from prison. They've been together ever since, and now share a daughter.

Gypsy and Ken originally started dating while she was still in prison, and he proposed to her in 2018 before breaking up with her a few months later. Gypsy has discussed the split several times before, explaining that it was her "first experience with real heartbreak".

In her new docuseries, Life After Lock Up, she explains that she was "blindsided" by Ken when he broke up with her.

Now, in an interview with PEOPLE ahead of the launch of the new series, Ken revealed the reason he called off the engagement.

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"Well, I think one of the biggest things was outside opinion and influence," Ken told the outlet, admitting that he listened to public commentary — including Dr. Phil — instead of the voices in his own head.

"I had listened to a podcast from Dr. Phil, and I had a lot of people in my ear just telling me that the best thing I can do for her is to give her some time to build a self-identity that she's never been able to build before, and even while she's in prison."

“And I felt that, at the time, all those opinions — especially Dr. Phil’s — I felt like that was the right choice to make at the time for both of us,” he continued. “So we went off in separate directions, but fate allowed us to meet back up again.”

Ken added that Dr. Phil "was one of the biggest outside, I guess, opinions that shaped the way of our relationship at the time."

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Gypsy previously opened up about her first heartbreak in her e-book, Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom.

She revealed that Ken broke up with her because of the overwhelming attention and public scrutiny she was under after Hulu's The Act (a dramatised series about her involvement in the murder of her mother Dee Dee Blanchard) went viral.

"I was transformed into a pseudo-celebrity," Gypsy wrote in the book. "My personal life became public, which was really hard on Ken. Clickbait articles appeared mockingly announcing our engagement."

"Ken was a private person and didn't want the attention or the scrutiny," she continued. "While I understood and shared in his sentiment, I took it hard when he ended our relationship."

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Of course, the couple have now put it all behind them. They're back together and now share a daughter, Aurora, who was born exactly one year after Gypsy was released from prison.

Speaking to TODAY.com, Gypsy shared that their relationship is now much better the second time around.

"When we first met and were engaged, we were very young,” she said. “Now, we’re in our early 30s, and we’ve matured a lot. Back then, it was the wrong time, wrong place. Now, it’s the right time, right place, and the love was always there."