Still grieving the death of partner Ken Urker last week, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard wants lawmakers to take more comprehensive action about cyberbullying.
Early on Sunday morning, the Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up star started a Change.org petition proposing Kenan’s Law in memory of Urker, the father of her daughter.
“Ken recently died following a suspected overdose,” Blanchard wrote. “At this time, we do not know whether the overdose was intentional, and I will not speculate about circumstances that have not been determined. What I can speak about is what happened before his death. We reported It. Again and again. Ken was a public figure and experienced an enormous amount of public scrutiny. Across platforms including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Reddit, there was extensive content about him that we believed crossed the line from criticism into targeted harassment and cyberbullying.”
Blanchard said both she and Urker reported the alleged abuse — which comprised videos, posts, and comments — only to be told there was no violation. The problem, she said, is that social media platforms are considering individual incidents instead of patterns of online abuse.
Now Blanchard wants “stronger procedures for how major social-media platforms handle serious and repeated reports of online harassment.” Specifically, the reality star wants pattern-based reporting, human review of automated moderation, and meaningful ways to appeal moderation decisions.
“Free speech matters,” she wrote. “But there must also be a distinction between criticism about someone and a sustained pattern of conduct that may violate harassment or safety policies. Being a public figure does not mean you stop being human. Public figures read the comments. They see the videos. They have children. They have parents. They have families. They experience the consequences of what happens online. Fame does not erase humanity.”
Blanchard also acknowledged that public figures aren’t the only ones experiencing what she says Urker endured. “There are people experiencing sustained online targeting right now who may be reporting individual videos, comments and accounts without anyone ever examining what all of those reports look like together,” she wrote in the petition. “I want something meaningful to come from what our family has experienced. I want lawmakers to ask whether our current systems are good enough. And if they aren’t, I want us to change them.”
Urker and Blanchard connected through a pen-pal program while she was in prison for her role in the 2015 murder of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, whom Blanchard has accused of abusing her and forcing her to fake illnesses, according to NBC News.
Engaged from October 2018 to August 2019, Urker and Blanchard reconnected in the spring of 2024 and announced that June they were expecting a baby, per Today.com. Their daughter, Aurora, arrived that December.
As of the time of this writing, Blanchard’s petition has more than 2,400 signatures.