Nearly 20 years after Luke Bryan’s sister, Kelly Bryan, unexpectedly died, the country star is opening up about her cause of death for the very first time. During his appearance on Anderson Cooper’s All There Is podcast this week, Luke wanted to clear up “misinformation” surrounding Kelly’s death in 2007, including rumors that his family was trying to “cover up” the reason that she passed.
Kelly died in 2007 at the age of 39.
Seven years later, her husband, Ben Lee Cheshire, died of a heart attack, leaving behind the three children he’d been caring for on his own after Kelly’s death. Luke and his wife, Caroline, ended up taking the children in, but he hasn’t really addressed the reason for Kelly’s death at such a young age until now.
Luke knows people have been wondering what really happened.
While talking about his experience with grief on Anderson’s podcast, Luke said that he knows there’s been some mystery around his sister’s death.
“There’s some misinformation out there on the internet, and I think some people kind of wonder what happened and think that we’ve tried to cover it up,” he said.
“There is a very, very small percentage of people that die for no reason in the world. And it’s called sudden death syndrome and that’s essentially what they described my sister’s death as,” he said. “She was in her home doing her laundry … it was like … somebody just turned the switch off on her and it was just tragic beyond words.”
Luke and his family waited a long time for answers.
Luke said that since there were so many “unanswered questions” about her death, the family did search for answers, though ultimately a lot of their investigation came up “inconclusive.”
“She had a pretty severe, like, orbital bone injury,” he said. “So whether she fainted or not, I think she may have went into the floor and kind of knocked herself out. My nephew was 3 at the time.”
He went on to talk about how much his sister meant to him, adding, “She really was everything in our lives. She was a mother of three children and she was, I mean, the best mother you could ever dream of. And we all leaned on her for so many things and it’s hard to really wrap your brain around her being gone.”
His sons, Bo and Tate, have formed a “special bond” with the cousins they were able to grow up with.
“I can’t imagine a household where Til would have never grown up in it,” Luke said. “And, I mean, it’s just been a blessing and a silver lining to have him and to watch the girls go through life and become mothers and … and get through life daily has been pretty inspiring too. I’m really proud of them.”
