Overview
- Barker, who spoke on Anderson Cooper’s podcast on Thursday, Aug. 20, said his mother told him to “pursue music” the day she died and that he still sees her guidance as central to his career.
- He went to school the day after her death, tried out for marching band and plunged into drumming as a way to cope with grief and fulfill her wish.
- Barker revisited the 2008 small‑plane crash that severely burned him, killed four people and left him with long‑running post‑traumatic stress and a fear of flying.
- He credits years of therapy and time with his wife Kourtney Kardashian and their blended family of seven children for helping him manage survivor guilt and rebuild his life.
- These reflections appear on the CNN podcast and in the Hulu documentary Louder Than Fear as Barker reframes those losses as forces that defined his work, recovery and reliance on loved ones.