‘That was a mistake’: A year after 3-year-old’s drowning, Emilie Kiser apologizes for letting 16-month-old skip life jacket

An influencer whose 3-year-old son drowned more than a year ago has apologized for letting her 16-month-old sit on a boat without a life jacket, telling followers it was a lapse in judgment she deeply regrets.

An influencer whose 3-year-old son drowned more than a year ago has apologized for letting her 16-month-old sit on a boat without a life jacket, telling followers it was a lapse in judgment she deeply regrets.

Emilie Kiser, who announced last month that she’s pregnant again, faced intense criticism after recently posting a photo of her younger son, Teddy, on a watercraft without a life vest during a family outing.

Kiser’s older son, Trigg, 3, drowned in a pool at the family’s Arizona home in May 2025, police said at the time. Authorities found the boy unconscious. Kiser’s husband, Brady Kiser, said he had been briefly distracted while watching Trigg while his wife was away. Investigators ultimately declined to file criminal charges against Brady Kiser in connection with the toddler’s death.

Emilie Kiser’s social media following has made her family’s parenting choices a frequent subject of public scrutiny.

“Over the course of the last year, our family has been no stranger to tragedy and how quickly life can change,” Kiser said in her Friday-evening post. “We lost our son Trigg a little over a year ago to a preventable drowning and we will forever and always take accountability for the ways that we went wrong and the things that we didn’t do.”