NEED TO KNOW
Emilie Kiser opened up about her late 3-year-old son, Trigg, on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast on June 17, over a year after the toddler’s fatal drowning incident in May 2025
During the interview, the influencer — who was not home at the time when Trigg fell in their backyard pool — recalled the phone call she received from her husband Brady alerting her to what happened
Trigg died in the hospital on May 18, 2025, six days after the accident; Brady and Emilie are also parents to younger son Teddy, who was 5 months old when his older brother died
Emilie Kiser recounted the tragic events that led to her son’s death over a year after his fatal drowning incident last year.
The influencer, 27, appeared on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast on Tuesday, June 17, marking her first interview since her 3-year-old Trigg died in May 2025. Emilie’s husband, Brady Kiser, 29, was watching their younger son, Teddy, now 1, when Trigg fell in their backyard pool; she was not home at the time. Trigg died in the hospital six days later, on May 18.
Brady shared his account of what happened with authorities last year, after the accident occurred. He initially reported that he had lost sight of his son for three to five minutes before finding him in their pool. The Chandler Police Department (CPD) later said their video evidence showed that Trigg “was in the backyard unsupervised for more than nine minutes, and in the water for about seven of those minutes.”
Emilie Kiser with her husband Brady and their son Trigg.
Credit: Emilie Kiser/Instagram
After the CPD completed the investigation months later, they recommended that Brady be tried for a Class 4 felony charge of child abuse. However, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office ultimately said that Brady would not face charges, writing in a statement that there was “no likelihood of conviction” against the father.
During her recent discussion with Shetty, Emilie discussed what happened on the day of the accident from her perspective, since she was not present when Trigg was discovered in the pool.
“I was 5 weeks postpartum, and I went out to dinner for a little girls’ night out, and about maybe 10 minutes after I arrived, I got a phone call from my husband that our son Trigg had fallen in the pool and that he wasn’t breathing,” she said, choking up as she recalled the evening 13 months ago.
“I could hear the pain and just confusion in his voice. I knew immediately, before he even said anything, that something was wrong,” Emilie continued. “So I rushed to the hospital to be by my son’s side, and our life just completely changed that day. And he passed away about a week later … Our whole world fell apart.”
Looking back, Emilie said her body went into “fight or flight mode” in the immediate aftermath of the drowning incident.
“The only thing that was going through my mind was just that I wanted [Trigg] to be okay, that I wanted my old life back, that I wanted him to have his life back. I mean, it’s what he deserves,” she told Shetty, 38. “You can’t even describe that feeling of when when your child passes away from a preventable accident, a preventable tragedy. All that’s going through your mind is, ‘Where did I go wrong? Where did we go wrong? How did this happen? Why did this happen?’ “
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At another point during the episode, Emilie addressed how she came to forgive Brady. She admitted she “felt so angry at him” in the beginning of her grief and grappled with the possibility that their marriage could end. However, she eventually came to the realization that she could have been the one at home with their kids that night.
“This could have just as easily been me in Brady’s position. Brady was taking care of our newborn child. When I left for dinner that night, he was de-thawing my breast milk, trying to get Teddy settled, a 5-week-old baby,” Emilie shared.
“That doesn’t excuse anything. It doesn’t excuse what happened. It doesn’t excuse any of the series of events after that,” she continued. “But taking that accountability, along with all the other things I know I could have changed, gave me so much true, deep, real, raw empathy for him of, this could have been me … I would so deeply want him to forgive me and to know that I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
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