At a Glance
- Influencer Brielle Persun lost husband Tyler to pancreatitis four months after son Colby’s birth
- She traded book-only posts for raw grief vlogs, doubling her following
- Fellow creator Emilie Kiser, who lost son Trigg to drowning, inspired her return
- Why it matters: Their open grief is silencing online trolls and helping thousands feel less alone
Brielle Persun’s Instagram used to be all pastel book stacks and five-star reviews. On January 10, 2025, the day pancreatitis took her husband Tyler, the captions stopped being about plot twists and started being about survival. Four months earlier the couple had welcomed son Colby; overnight she became a 27-year-old widow and single mom with a platform that no longer matched her life.
From Bookstagram to Life-Raft
Persun tells News Of Los Angeles she couldn’t fake enthusiasm for beach reads while figuring out how to afford diapers and funeral costs. She ditched the niche, rebranded her page @BookwithBrielle into day-in-the-life vlogs, and began talking straight into the camera about grief, single-mom panic, and the first time Colby laughed without his dad.
The algorithm rewarded the honesty. Follower counts climbed, comments tripled, and the DMs filled with two kinds of messages:
- “You’re giving widows a voice.”
- “How can you smile when your husband just died?”
She saves the first kind, screenshots the second.
The Criticism Pipeline
“People are very quick to think they can perceive something from a five-second snippet online – whether it’s parenting, motherhood, grief, anything – and just blurt their comments out,” Persun says. The loudest backlash lands on clips where she’s dancing with Colby or wearing bright colors, as if sorrow has a dress code.
She answers critics with a steady refrain: “You can’t expect widows to just be sad and cry all day. Until you’re in it, you don’t get a vote on how someone copes.”
Finding Emilie Kiser
Scrolling at 3 a.m. during Colby’s night feed, Persun stumbled on Emilie Kiser’s return video. Kiser’s 3-year-old son Trigg drowned in May 2025; after a months-long hiatus she posted a tearful reel about therapy, anger, and grocery shopping again. Persun replayed it 40 times.
“I give Emilie a lot of credit for coming back,” she says. “She’s given me hope and strength to show up as I am.” The two creators now trade voice notes comparing the bizarre overlap in their comment sections: identical accusations of monetizing tragedy, identical questions about why they’re not hiding under blankets.
What She Posts Now
Persun’s content calendar looks nothing like 2024:
- Monday: grocery haul with a $75 widow budget
- Wednesday: Colby’s milestone minus Dad
- Friday: stitched video answering follower questions like “Do you feel guilty laughing?”
Sponsorships are sparse; she turns down brands pushing weight-loss tea or dating apps. Revenue comes from Amazon book links and a modest Etsy shop selling digital grief-journals. The bills get paid, she says, “but clout isn’t the goal-connection is.”
The Stats She Shares
| Metric | Before Jan 10 | July 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Followers | 120k | 310k |
| Avg. views | 80k | 450k |
| Weekly DMs | 200 | 1,800 |
| Negative comments | 5% | 12% |
She keeps the negativity percentage in her phone notes as proof the supportive surge is still louder.
Community or Commodity?
Critics argue the line blurs when tears hit the thumbnail. Persun counters that silence felt like erasure. “I have women who say, ‘I appreciate you still showing up joyful. I can be happy too.’ That outweighs tone-policing every time.”
She archives the worst comments for a future series on digital etiquette, tagging therapists to stitch responses. The project is undeveloped but she’s already crowdsourcing title ideas with followers.
Key Takeaways
- Persun’s page proves audiences will follow authenticity across niches
- Fellow bereaved mom Emilie Kiser models long-term survival, not just day-one grief
- Online grief policing repeats the same questions: “Aren’t you sad?” The answer: yes-and still posting
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