Luke Bryan is clearing up the “misinformation” surrounding his sister Kelly Bryan’s shocking 2007 death.
The “Country Girl” hitmaker revealed the cause of her sister’s death and also addressed fan speculation that she and her family tried to “cover it up” on Tuesday’s “All There Is With Anderson Cooper.”
“I’ve never really explained what happened to my sister,” Luke began.
“I think there’s misinformation out there on the internet and some people wonder what happened and wonder if we tried to cover it up.”
“But the proportion of people in the world who die for no reason is very small,” he says. “It’s called sudden death syndrome, and that’s basically how they described my sister’s death.”
“She was at home doing laundry and it was Anderson. It was like someone turned her off. It was tragic beyond words.”
The family decided to investigate Kelly’s death because they had “too many unanswered questions” and wanted to know if there was any “family history” or genetics that could have been passed down to her three children (Jordan, Chris, and Tilde).
However, the “American Idol” judge, 49, admitted that it took “a while” for the family to receive an official cause of death from doctors due to some “inconclusive” findings regarding her death.
“She had some pretty severe injuries, including to her orbital bones,” Luke pointed out. “So whether she passed out or not, I think she may have fallen on the floor and passed out. My nephew was three years old at the time.”
Luke added: “If someone had been there, she might have had a better chance of survival.”
“She really was our everything,” he said of Kelly. “She was the mother of three children, and I mean, the best mother you could ever dream of. And we all relied on her for so many things. And it’s hard to really wrap my head around her being gone.”
Reflecting on his grief, the Country Music Award winner said he didn’t know “how to voice my feelings” when he attended Kelly’s funeral, but revealed that he felt “nauseous” that morning.
“I didn’t want to go to the funeral home and see my sister. I really…didn’t handle the situation very well,” Luke said.
“When I saw her, it was like a pressure valve was released,” he explained. “And I feel like I’m just in the middle…I’m not, I can’t explain it. It was really like she forgave me – she released me into that room. My mom didn’t have an experience like that, and I think I was the only one in my family to have an experience like that.”
Seven years after Kelly’s death in 2007, her husband Ben Cheshire died of a heart attack. At that point, the country singer and his wife, Caroline Bryan, adopted the couple’s three children.
Luke and Caroline are also parents to Thomas “Bo” Bryan, 17, and Tatum “Tate” Bryan, 15.
“My oldest sons, Beau and Till, are, I mean, everything like brothers. They look and smell like two brothers who complain and fight and wrestle and give each other a hard time,” he said.
“But 15-year-olds Tate and Till have such a special bond that I can’t imagine a family that Till didn’t grow up in. And I mean, having him was such a blessing and a beacon of hope, and it was also so inspiring to see these girls move on with their lives, become mothers…and overcome life every day. I’m really proud of them.”
