Luke Bryan opened up about the "misconceptions" that have circulated around the sudden demise of his sister, Kelly, during the October 29th episode of the CNN Podcast "All There Is with Anderson Cooper." The country music star reflected on his sister's "heart-wrenching" death at the age of 39 in 2007.
Now 49 years old, Luke shared with host Anderson Cooper that he "never really explained" what happened to his sister. "There's a lot of misinformation floating around on the internet, and I think some people are left wondering what really happened and assume we've tried to hide it," he began.
Luke then noted that there's a "tiny fraction of people who die for no apparent reason," which is what happened to his sister. "It's called sudden death syndrome, and that's essentially what they described my sister's death as," he said.
Luke recalled the day Kelly was doing laundry and it was like "someone just turned the switch off on her." "It was simply beyond words, a tragedy so profound," he said.
After her passing, Luke and his family were left with a myriad of "unanswered questions." "We wanted to know if there was a family history that her children might have inherited," he wondered. "Typically, an autopsy on someone at 39 would reveal an aneurysm, embolism, or blood clot of some kind—but everything was inconclusive."
Luke noted that at the time of her death, Kelly had a "pretty severe" orbital bone injury. "Whether she fainted or not...she may have fallen to the floor and knocked herself out," he said, adding, "I just think if someone could have been there, maybe her chances of survival would have been much better."
Luke described his sister as "the heart and soul of our lives." "She was a mother of three children and the best mother you could ever dream of," he said. "We all leaned on her for so many things, and it's hard to wrap our minds around her being gone."
Luke also told Cooper, 58, that the last time he saw Kelly was during a trip to Nashville for his 2007 Grand Ole Opry performance, where she bought 120 tickets for family and friends on her personal credit card. "I never could have imagined that our last photo would have been taken in the lobby of the Grand Ole Opry right after I had done...my first performance," he said.
Kelly's widower, Ben Cheshire, passed away from a heart attack in 2014, and Luke and his wife Caroline decided to take in the couple's three children: teenage son Til and adult daughters Jordan and Kris. Luke and Caroline have two sons: Thomas "Bo" Boyer, 17, and Tatum "Tate" Christopher, 15. "We get to live with Kelly through her children," Luke told PEOPLE in a 2021 cover story. "And we see so many things in her children that remind us of her."
