Emilie Kiser, the influencer whose 3-year-old son died in a 2025 drowning accident, shared how she was able to forgive her husband, who was caring for their children at the time.
“I have so much respect for him, honestly, and I think that would maybe shock people,” Kiser said on Wednesday’s episode of the “On Purpose with Jay Shetty” podcast. “But he has allowed me to take out every emotion I’ve had throughout this process, whether it’s on him or talking to him or with other people.”
“He’s never made me feel bad for it,” she added.
Kiser’s 3-year-old son, Trigg, drowned in the family’s Arizona backyard pool in May 2025. Kiser, who had given birth to their second son five months earlier, had gone out to eat that night with friends, and her husband, Brady, was staying home with the children.
According to police, Trigg was “in the backyard unsupervised for more than nine minutes, and in the water for about seven of those minutes.” The boy was hospitalized in critical condition and died six days later. Kiser has opened up about her son’s death a little bit on TikTok, where she has more than 5 million followers, but Shetty’s was her first long-form interview. She called the death “preventable” and expressed regret that they didn’t have a fence around the pool.
The influencer said that she and her husband have learned to grieve together, but that in the beginning, she was “so angry” at him.
“I think the biggest thing that really altered literally my brain chemistry and the way I thought about it was this could have just as easily happened to me,” Kiser said.
At the time, she said, her husband was taking care of their 5-month-old and defrosting her breast milk while Trigg was in the backyard. That doesn’t excuse what happened, she clarified, but she would want Brady to forgive her if she were in his shoes. “I really just have so much empathy and love for him, and he is so strong, and I’m really proud of us, honestly, and how we’ve grieved together through all the therapy we’ve done,” she said.
Kiser also opened up about the media attention her son’s death received, saying she has PTSD anytime she hears a helicopter because of all the news helicopters that circled her home after the accident. Shortly after Trigg’s death, Kiser filed and won a lawsuit against multiple public offices in Arizona to keep the details of the death private.
