Gypsy-Rose Blanchard's Boyfriend Ken Urker Dumped Her After Listening to Dr. Phil Discuss Their Relationship (Exclusive)

Gypsy-Rose Blanchard and her boyfriend Ken Urker’s temporary split was largely due to “outside opinion and influence” — including that of Dr. Phil, Urker says.

The couple opened up about the ups and downs of their relationship in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE ahead of the release of Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up season 2. During the chat, Urker revealed what was going through his head when the pair parted ways prior to their April 2024 reconciliation.

Urker first connected with Gypsy-Rose, a victim of Munchausen by proxy, when she was still in prison for the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard. He proposed to Gypsy-Rose, 33, in October 2018, and the couple briefly called off their engagement before reuniting in August 2019.

Related: Gypsy-Rose Blanchard Says It’s ‘Adorable’ to Watch Ken Urker as a Dad as He Shares His Favorite Parts of Fatherhood (Exclusive)

They later went their separate ways again for multiple years, during which Gypsy-Rose married and split from estranged husband Ryan Anderson. (She announced her separation from Anderson four months after she was released from prison in December 2023.)

In Life After Lock Up, which gives viewers a look into the couple’s rekindled romance, Gypsy-Rose explains that she was blindsided by her and Urker’s split — which, Urker revealed to PEOPLE, was a decision shaped more by the voices around him than those in his own head.

“Well, I think one of the biggest things was outside opinion and influence,” Urker says of his decision to end things with Gypsy-Rose. “I had listened to a podcast from Dr. Phil, and I had a lot of people in my ear just telling me that the best thing I can do for her is to give her some time to build a self-identity that she's never been able to build before, and even while she's in prison.”

“And I felt that, at the time, all those opinions — especially Dr. Phil’s — I felt like that was the right choice to make at the time for both of us,” he continues. “So we went off in separate directions, but fate allowed us to meet back up again.”

Related: Gypsy-Rose Blanchard Shares Her Biggest Concern as a First-Time Mom: 'Trying to Be Cautious' (Exclusive)

The television personality's podcast analysis about Gypsy-Rose — which was not focused on their relationship, but included Dr. Phil, 74, talking about the Munchausen by proxy victim and mentioning Urker by name — influenced Urker more than the other "opinions," he underscored.

The Dr. Phil host, Urker tells PEOPLE, "was one of the biggest outside, I guess, opinions that shaped the way of our relationship at the time."

After calling off their engagement for a second time — and after Gypsy-Rose’s relationship with now-estranged husband Anderson ran its course — the Life After Lock Up stars reconnected, and now share a baby daughter, Aurora, who was born on Dec. 28.

Recalling how he and Gypsy-Rose found their way back to each other, Urker tells PEOPLE, "The very first weekend of April [2024] is when I came to visit her for the first time after she had gotten out. We spent that weekend together and had an incredible time."

Related: Gypsy-Rose Blanchard Is Excited to Lean into Her 'Mother-Daughter Relationship' as She Says She 'Didn't Have That' (Exclusive)

After that first meeting, things snowballed when the couple, who now lives in Missouri with their daughter, met up a month later to attend a jazz festival. "Then shortly after that, we realized we were going to have a baby,” Urker recalls. “So then I moved down here.”

And Urker’s previous worries about giving Gypsy-Rose “time to build a self-identity" have since dissipated. It has been amazing, he says, to see how she's "blossomed into an incredible person" since her release from prison.

"I couldn't be more proud to have her as the mother of our child and as a partner in life. And I think that even after all the things that she's gone through, that was one of the things that I loved about her from the beginning,” Urker says, adding, “I couldn't be happier to have her at my side in this life.”

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Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up season 2 premieres Monday, March 10 at 9 p.m. ET on Lifetime.

Read the original article on People