Emilie Kiser is opening up about how she navigated complicated emotions toward husband Brady Kiser after the death of their eldest son, Trigg.
“We’ve really done our best to grieve together and to talk through every emotion and every feeling. I really give Brady so much empathy and respect. I have so much respect for him, honestly, and I think that would maybe shock people,” Emilie said on the Wednesday, June 17, episode of Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcast. “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.”
She continued, “I just have so much respect for that, of how much he has let me feel every emotion and he’s never made me feel bad for it. He’s going through so much as well, and like I said, we are the only two people that can understand at all what the other person is going through.”
Emilie and Brady’s eldest son, Trigg, died at age 3 in May 2025 after being found unconscious in the family’s pool. Authorities initially recommended pressing criminal charges against Brady because he was the only adult home at the time of the accident, but the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office ultimately decided against it because there was “no likelihood of conviction.”
Reflecting on the incident, Emilie shared on Wednesday that others might say they could “never forgive” their husband or “stay married to him.” However, Emilie said that Brady “let [her] feel all of those emotions” and admitted it has been “really hard at times to grieve together.”
“To be honest there was a time, where I was just — I mean from the beginning — felt so angry at him of literally, ‘I don’t know if I will ever forgive this man.’ But, I think the biggest thing that really, kind of, altered, literally, my brain chemistry and that way I thought about it was this could have just as easily happened to me. This could have just as easily been me in Brady’s position,” she said.
Emilie recalled that Brady was “taking care of our newborn child,” referring to son Teddy whom they welcomed just over one month prior to the incident. Emilie explained that Brady was
“de-thawing [her] breast milk” and “trying to get Teddy settled” when she went to dinner with friends that night.
“That doesn’t excuse anything. It doesn’t excuse what happened. It doesn’t excuse any of the series of events after that. 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,’” she explained. “Even if I got to a point where I could not stay married to him. Even if I accepted of that, if there was a chance where we don’t stay together — this was when we first lost Trigg that I felt this way – I would be able to forgive him because I would so deeply want him to forgive me and to know that I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
She continued, “That’s exactly how I feel for Brady. I really just have so much empathy and love for him and he is so strong. I’m really proud of us, honestly, and how we’ve grieved together.”
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