Presley Gerber, the son of supermodel Cindy Crawford and entrepreneur Rande Gerber, is dead at the age of 27.
Citing the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner, TMZ was among the outlets to report he died Sunday at a rehab facility in California. His death was the result of an apparent overdose, though an autopsy has not yet been conducted.
According to TMZ, Gerber checked into a luxury rehab facility in Santa Monica Saturday night, just hours before he was found unresponsive on the property. TMZ reported first responders attempted life-saving measures, but he was pronounced dead at the scene at 9:45a.m. Sunday.
A representative for Crawford and her husband confirmed their son’s death and said “the family is asking for privacy during this very difficult and painful time.”
Gerber’s Public Struggles
Like his mom and younger sister, Kaia, Gerber was a model. He was signed by IMG models as a teenager in 2016 and did work for Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, and Moschino. But Gerber also publicly struggled with addiction and mental health for years.
He was arrested and charged with driving under the influence (DUI) in Beverly Hills in January 2019 at the age of 19. In 2020, he tattooed the word “misunderstood” under his right eye before later getting it removed.
Gerber’s passing came just weeks after his sister spoke about his struggles in an interview with Vogue. “When something like that happens in a family, it kind of levels everyone. I think that’s also why I started to self-identify as the easy one and never wanted to ask for help. Because it felt like too much to have two children who were needing,” she said.
She also commended her brother for speaking out. “My parents for most of our lives were very, very private and didn’t share anything, and now we have this absolute teacher, my brother, who says, ‘I’m gonna be very human for everyone.’ There’s only so much you can hide from the world. And trying to put a lid on something just makes the person feel like you’re ashamed of them,” she added.
Speaking Out
Beginning in 2024, Gerber began posting a series of candid videos on social media called “Mental Health Mondays,” in which he chronicled his substance abuse, mental health concerns, and other treatment. The posts came to Megyn’s attention last November when she happened upon a heartbreaking seven-minute clip he posted about the long list of medications he was on.
Gerber talked extensively about the four classes of meds he was taking at the time–”blood pressure, opiate, benzo, anti-depressant”–in addition to the “comfort meds” he said he tried to “save” for when he was doing “cuts” in dosage to his other prescriptions. Those drugs, he said, included gabapentin, hydroxyzine, clonidine, but Gerber admitted he didn’t “have as much direction as I would like to have” from doctors on what to take and when.
In an apparent effort to stay clean, Gerber shared he hadn’t consumed alcohol in a few months and that he was “just trying to work out, and sauna, and take baths, and… hopefully find a good community of people that can be good influences on me.” He blamed growing up in Hollywood for there being “a lot of people I’m around that I love to death, but right now I try not to be around them.”
Ketamine drips, according to Gerber, were helpful when he was trying to do a “hardcore detox,” but he was hopeful that a “tapering” strategy would prevent that from being needed going forward. “I’m just looking for a doctor that’s going to actually help me taper, not just keep me on some stuff,” he said.
“Anyways, that’s the update on my life. I’m hoping this reaches people in many ways, A, so you feel like you’re not alone because that is how I feel most of the time and I have a feeling if I say all of this, a lot of people will at least know that there’s someone else going through it,” Gerber continued. “The second thing is hopefully I find some people out here that are willing to help and/or are people that know someone that can help.”
“Thank you all for being patient with me with the Mental Health Monday stuff. Uh, you know, life comes in different ways at different times, so [I] had to take a little break,” Gerber added. “Happy Thanksgiving or post-Thanksgiving, everyone. I know the holidays could be weird as hell and, yes, they were for me too. So, love y’all. Peace and love and uh hopefully we can, I don’t know, head in a direction or get somewhere with all this.”
A Lesson to Learn
On Monday’s show, Megyn, who has dealt with drug addiction in her own family, wondered how Gerber ended up “gone too soon.”
“How does this happen? How does somebody with all of life’s advantages seemingly die of a drug overdose in a rehab center before his thirtieth birthday,” she asked. “He had beauty. He had money. He had, from all accounts, loving parents and a sister who adored him. He had success… in the modeling industry. He had a great education in his K through 12 schooling. He had access to very powerful people, including his own parents… So, how does this happen? I mean, are… all of those the reasons that he became a drug addict? I don’t know.”
In resurfaced videos, Gerber shared how he loved growing up on the water surfing and playing water polo and he did not speak particularly fondly of turning over his teenage years to modeling. “Can you imagine putting your 13-year-old [daughter] and 15-year-old [son] in modeling? I just think it’s a reckless decision… It’s known to be a terrible industry. It’s the same as putting them into singing. The odds are overwhelmingly against them growing up to be well people,” Megyn noted.
“Look, I have nothing but empathy today for Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber… I’m sure they are in the depths of despair… This is for the rest of us,” Megyn clarified. “This is not about how they parented necessarily–though in part it is [because] I don’t think it was a good idea to put young children in modeling–but it’s really about parents who, in general, are allowing their children to grow up or forcing them to too soon.”
Making Time
Instead, Megyn said she always goes back to the advice of Dr. Leonard Sax, who advocated for parents spending as much time with their children as possible during their formative years. “More than anything else, they need time with a loving parent. And you can be as loving as you want, but if you are flying all over the world working on your own career and your next billion-dollar deal, it’s really tough to put in the time that is needed to raise a well child. It just is, and too many parents forget this,” she explained.
The same goes, in her view, for over-scheduling kids with sports and other activities. “On top of it, you create busyness in your adolescence schedule… The push to make sure your kid is the most popular [and] doing the most provocative things is not a wise one. Let them be young and relatively sheltered as long as humanly possible. Before you know it, they will be off on their own,” Megyn said.
So whether it is sitting down for family dinners as many nights a week as possible or hanging out while reading a book or watching a movie, Megyn it is imperative for parents and children to spend time together. “It’s not about you imprinting yourself or your values on your child, though it’s in part about that. Just the wellness that comes from immersing yourself as much as you possibly can in a loving, supportive environment with people you trust and who trust and love you will be gone [once they leave your house], and you can’t get it back,” she added.
“Do what you have to do to get time in with your child. You do not want to get a call like the one the Gerber family got yesterday,” Megyn concluded. “My prayers are with them. I’m very sorry for their loss.”
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,402 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.