NEED TO KNOW
Faster Pussycat singer Taime Downe is opening up about his late fiancée for the first time.
In a May 30 appearance on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk via Blabbermouth, the “Please Dear” artist spoke about Kimberly Burch, who is presumed dead at 56 after falling overboard from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in March.
“It’s a roller coaster,” said Downe, 60. “I’m hanging in there. I’m just taking it a day at a time.”
Kimberly Burch/Instagram
He continued: “And everybody thought going out on the road and doing what I do and being with my family in my band would be good for me. So I’ve taken their advice and [I’m] doing this. We’re going out with some cool bands.”
Downe then explained he’d be hitting the road with artists like Vain, Supersuckers, The Rumours and The Lonely Ones.
He explained that he thought it would be “very therapeutic.”
“[I’ll] get to see a bunch of fans and a bunch of friends across the country. So I think it’ll be helpful,” said Downe.
He added that he hoped it would be therapeutic for him personally.
“My fingers are crossed. I think so. I hope so. I’m just going out and doing what I love to do with the people I love. So, I think it can’t be anything but therapeutic, you know what I mean?” said Downe.
He then said that it was “heavy s—.”
“I’m just looking forward to playing shows and having fun,” said Downe.
He said it’s been “good” to talk about Kimberly’s death with her “close-knit friends.”
“But I don’t really wanna talk about it with strangers, ’cause it doesn’t seem appropriate. It is what it is,” said Downe.
Downe then claimed that the circumstances of Kimberly’s death were “alcohol and prescription related.”
“So I blame alcohol and pills on it,” he continued. “There’s no way I’d touch booze. For me, that’s just completely disgusting in my brain, you know what I mean? So I’ve got some hatred for booze, ’cause I loved the hell out of Kimberly, and it was just hard to deal with. We spent basically nine years together.”
“I don’t wanna get into what her psyche was at the time, but there’s a lot of things that make up people’s lives at a certain time of their life,” said Downe. “It’s been hard on everybody.”
Kimberly Burch/Instagram
On Monday, March 3, Kimberly’s mother Carnell told TMZ that her daughter fell overboard on the first day of the cruise.
In the interview, she said her daughter accompanied Downe during the band’s appearance on The ‘80s Cruise, a seven-day trip that began on Sunday, March 2 in Miami.
The circumstances around how Kimberly fell from the ship remained unclear, according to TMZ’s report.
Kimberly’s mother claimed her daughter was allegedly drinking during the cruise, something that she claimed was uncharacteristic of her daughter.
According to her mother, Kimberly didn’t have any emotional issues that she was aware of at the time.
At the time, PEOPLE contacted representatives for Faster Pussycat, Royal Caribbean, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and Entertainment Cruise Productions, but did not immediately receive a response.
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In a statement obtained by PEOPLE on March 5, a Royal Caribbean spokesperson said that their crew “immediately launched a search and rescue effort” and “is working with local authorities, and we are providing support and assistance to the guest’s family during this difficult time. To respect the privacy of our guest’s family, we have no additional details to share.”
According to the outlet, The Royal Bahamas Defense Force later halted its operations.
Kimberly’s family has not yet responded to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
