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The social media influencer joined Jay Shetty on his podcast, which released June 17. They discussed the aftermath of her son Trigg's drowning on May 18, 2025.

Trigg Kiser died in the hospital six days after he had tripped into the unfenced pool at the Kisers' Chandler home while playing with an inflatable chair. Trigg was in the water for nearly seven minutes before his father found him, according to police reports.

Brady Kiser was home with Trigg and their newborn son, Theodore, at the time of the drowning. Emilie Kiser was out with friends, and Brady knew his son was outside, the report said.

"You can't even describe that feeling of when your child passes away from a preventable accident, a preventable tragedy," she told Shetty. "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?' Hindsight is playing in your head 24/7."

How Emilie Kiser's grief will never go away

Shetty brought up the pain of losing a child, to which Kiser responded that you can never know what it's actually like unless you are going through it.

"Even you will be surprised by the decisions you make, your thought process, your grief," she said. "I mean, I had even heard similar stories before Trigg passed away. I mean, you always sit there with theoreticals of this is how I would handle it, or this is what I would do. And you would literally never know."

She said that very early on that health care professionals helped them get to the mental place they are in now. She and her husband also visited a care farm for animal therapy shortly after their son's death.

"I think people look at grief as stages or at some point it's gonna end, the pain is gonna end," Kiser said. "We look at grief as this finish line. I feel like for a lot of people, of I grieved for this amount of time, or I was sad for this amount of time. And then that's not how it works.

"It's never ending. Your grief is going to be with you for the rest of your life."

Emilie said that in the grand scheme of things, she isn't very far into her grief journey at all and that there are no stages of grief when you have lost a child. She said she doesn't define her days by whether it's a good day or a bad day; instead, she is just living minute by minute and basing it on how well she can manage her grief.

"If I'm having more moments throughout the day where I just can't do what I need to do, I'm OK with that too," Kiser said. "But I would say just every day I truly wake up like whatever, however this day goes, how whatever is thrown at me, I'll get through it and I literally just have to take it as it comes."

Forgiving her husband

At the end of the day, Kiser said Trigg's death happened because they didn't take certain precautions.

"I'm a very logical person and I go based off the facts, and that's what I had to do the entire time that we were in the hospital getting information, everything," she said. "And there's no answer for why he's not here."

"We should have protected him better," she said. "And that's why it happened."

Kiser said that she and her husband, Brady, have been in weekly couples counseling. The couple has done their best to grieve together and to talk through emotions and feelings. She said they are the only ones who understand what the other is going through.

"I really give Brady so much empathy and respect," she said. "I have so much respect for him honestly. And I think that would maybe shock people, 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."

It was difficult for her to forgive Brady in the beginning, she said. When she left for dinner that night, Brady was taking care of their newborn, dethawing breast milk and trying to get their five-week-old baby settled, she said.

"I felt so angry at him ... but I think the biggest thing that really kind of altered literally my brain chemistry and the way I thought about it was this could have just as easily happened to me," Kiser said. "This could have just as easily been me in Brady's position."

Social media and parenting

Kiser mentioned that when Trigg was hospitalized, she was not thinking about public perception, only about her son. She said she didn't realize how big everything had gotten and how many people were talking about it until after he had died.

She said that when she did get back online she wasn't preparing for any reaction, rather she was craving normalcy.

"When you're grieving and when you go through something, any sort of loss, honestly, I think that that's what a lot of us grip onto is how can I find any sense of normalcy in my life to get me through the day," Kiser said. "For me, that kind of was starting to slowly return to my job that I love so much. Nothing could have prepared me for the support that I received."

Emilie said she has gone through many different emotions with parenting since Trigg died. This includes not feeling good enough, feeling unfit and feeling scared.

She said losing a child shows you in the scariest, most real way possible how quickly life can change and be taken away and that scared her when it came to her younger son, Teddy.

"I always try to remind myself that I have a choice to make," Kiser said. "I can either let this completely derail me more than it already has and not really feel like I am fit or able to take care of my younger son. Or I can do everything in my power to be the best mom I possibly can for him and give him the same love that Trigg had and has. And I made a promise to Trigg right before we lost him, that I was gonna take care of Teddy."

She said she made that promise because, at the time, she felt like she couldn't — it was all too much and she couldn't even take care of herself. That promise has kept her going.

Lots of comments she has seen on social media said that Teddy is going to have such a terrible life and that he won't have the same parents that he did.

"He's never going to have the same parents Trigg had," she said. "We are fundamentally changed by this, but I will be even better. And I think I almost took that as motivation of I will give him the best life I possibly can. I will be the best mom I possibly can to him."