Influencer Emilie Kiser described the death of her 3-year-old son, Trigg, as “the worst moment of my life” while trying to prevent videos of his drowning from being made public.
The 26-year-old TikTok creator said the loss was “the most severe and emotional event I have ever experienced” as she petitioned a judge to block photos and video footage of the May tragedy in her backyard pool in Chandler, Arizona.
“The tragedy already haunts me, but knowing that specific video and other footage capturing this event and its aftermath may be released to the public crushes me beyond words,” Kiser wrote in newly unsealed court documents obtained by USA Today.
“Knowing that others could view these images forces me to relive the worst moment of my life, intensifying my grief and making it even harder to heal,” Kiser wrote.
These court documents mark Kiser’s first public comments on the death of her 3-year-old son, Trigg, who tripped on an inflatable chair and fell into the family swimming pool while his father, Brady, was inside the house attending to the couple’s newborn son, Theodore.
Trigg, the 3-year-old son of the TikTok star, died days after being found unresponsive in the family’s Arizona swimming pool.
Kiser’s declaration was part of a lawsuit she filed in May, just days after her son’s death, seeking to keep records related to the accidental drowning private.
In the lawsuit, Kiser allowed the partial release of the police report describing Trigg’s death, but surveillance video and images were excluded.
Kiser, who has remained silent on social media despite her more than 4.1 million TikTok followers and 1.7 million Instagram followers, said she and her husband have always shared only “love for our children” online.
“Nothing we have shared as part of my profession has depicted—or been intended to depict—anything but deep and adoring love within our family. That is how it should stay forever in my mind and in the minds of all others,” she wrote in the court documents.
Kiser’s husband, who was reportedly distracted by an NBA game he had bet on at the time of Trigg’s death, was recommended for a felony child abuse charge by Chandler Police in July. However, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell later announced that he would not face any charges.
Brady Kiser told police that Trigg had gone outside after dinner and said he was momentarily distracted by the couple’s newborn, which caused him to lose sight of his firstborn son.
According to the police report, Trigg was outside alone for 10 minutes and spent seven of those minutes in the pool before he was rescued.
He died on May 18, six days after being pulled from the water.
Attorneys for the Kiser family did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
