Influencer Emilie Kiser returned to TikTok on Saturday for the first time since the drowning death of her 3-year-old son, Trigg, in their Arizona backyard pool in May. The video marks her first extended return to the platform after going offline in the wake of the tragedy. In the clip, Kiser, 26, told followers, “Hey you guys, don’t even know what to say. It’s been a minute since I’ve obviously come on here. Not gonna lie, I’m really nervous right now. I don’t really know if there’s any right way to start this video, but I’m going to do my best.”
She said she has missed talking to the community and loves the connection the platform provides, hoping to reconnect and, in time, help others going through something similar. She noted she has been offline and will take it day by day, adding she isn’t going to pretend everything is fine. “This is really therapeutic for me. I miss talking to you guys, but I don’t know what that’s going to fully look like. I don’t know how much I’m willing to share, especially about my grief journey,” she said, while acknowledging the ongoing process of processing the loss.
Trigg’s death occurred in May when he was found unresponsive in the family pool by his father, Brady Kiser. Police documents indicate Trigg was unsupervised in the backyard for more than nine minutes and in the water for seven of those minutes. He was rushed to a hospital and pronounced dead on May 18. At the time, Brady was the only parent at home with Trigg and their older son Theodore, then about six months old. A police report also noted that Brady’s attention was divided between caring for the children and watching the Knicks’ playoff game during the incident, including a separate $25 bet that netted a $102.50 win.
Following the tragedy, Kiser filed a lawsuit seeking to keep details of her son’s passing private. She publicly spoke out for the first time in August, posting on Instagram that “Trigg is our baby and our best friend. The light and spirit he brought into this world was bright, pure, joyful, and undeniable. We miss him every second of every day and continuing forward often feels unbearable.” She added that she takes full accountability as Trigg’s mother and suggested that a permanent pool fence could have saved his life, signaling a commitment to pool-safety advocacy as part of her ongoing grief journey.
Her return to TikTok comes as she continues to balance personal healing with public visibility, a move that has drawn renewed attention to how creators process tragedy online. The posts and messages from Kiser emphasize grief as an ongoing process rather than a single event, and they underscore the complex dynamics of sharing private pain in a public forum.
