Influencer Emilie Kiser is back online following the drowning death of her 3-year-old son, Trigg, telling her followers that she’s “not gonna sugarcoat” the grieving process.
The 26-year-old returned to TikTok Saturday with a nearly five-minute video about “taking it day by day” both on and offline.
“I’m just doing my best every day to figure this out, figure my life out,” Kiser said of contending with the “really, really hard” aftermath of Trigg’s death in May. “I’m not gonna sit here and act like things are fine and dandy. And I don’t want it to come off that way with me coming back and making content again.”
Kiser said that resuming content creation “is really therapeutic.”
“I miss talking to you guys, but obviously I don’t know what that’s going to fully look like,” she continued. “I don’t know how much I’m going to be willing to share, especially about my grief journey. … I’m really just trying to process everything as best as I can, day by day.”
Kiser also clarified that she’s “not ready” yet to share everything with her followers — 156,000 subscribers on YouTube, 1.8 million followers on Instagram, and 4.2 million on TikTok — though “there are so many things” she wants to broach, given her platform.
“I don’t know when I’ll be ready, but if you are going through anything similar, I just wanna say that I love you and I’m here for you. And I understand how hard it is,” she said.
Kiser was out with friends on May 12, when her husband, Brady, was allegedly distracted by the NBA playoffs, leaving little Trigg “unsupervised for more than 9 minutes” in the family’s Arizona backyard, according to a police report released in August.
It was during that time that Trigg fell into the pool and was “in the water for about 7 of those minutes,” per the redacted report.
Trigg was hospitalized in critical condition for nearly a week before he was declared dead on May 18.
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Despite the Chandler Police Department’s recommendation that Brady be charged with felony child abuse in Trigg’s fatal drowning, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced in July that it would not pursue the case.
“Brady Kiser will not be charged in the drowning death of his son because there is no reasonable likelihood of conviction,” prosecutors said at the time.
In late August, Emilie issued a statement thanking her family and followers for their support, but said she would “be establishing more boundaries with what [she shares] online.”
