Tragic Details About Cowboy Kent Rollins

There aren’t many cooks out there like Cowboy Kent Rollins. Born and raised in Oklahoma, Rollins kickstarted his cooking career out in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico, where he assisted his uncle in feeding hungry hunters. Since then, he’s traversed America’s open plains with his 1876 Studebaker chuckwagon in tow, working as a chuckwagon and cowboy cook who is as proficient in heartfelt storytelling as he is at whipping up a hearty meal in the middle of a hailstorm.

Today, most people know Rollins from his eponymous YouTube channel where over 3 million subscribers tune in to see him wax lyrical about the ins and outs of cast iron cookware. He also shares tips on how to cook everything from Abraham Lincoln’s go-to chicken fricassee to his version of the Burger King Whopper, a significant amount of which is prepped on his beloved homemade wood-burning stove, Bertha.

But despite the peaceful, wholesome life captured in his videos, Rollins has faced his fair share of adversity. From his youth on a ranch in the Sooner State to the present day, the internet’s favorite cowboy has dealt with plenty of challenging obstacles. In true cowboy style, Rollins remains extraordinarily resilient. As his wife Shannon once told MEL Magazine, “He sees life as this wonderful adventure every day. There’s a very salt-of-the-earth positivity there.” This attitude becomes even more impressive once you learn more about his journey over the years.

The youngest of four, Kent Rollins and his family lived on a ranch along the banks of southwest Oklahoma’s Red River, where his father had about 250 cows. Rollins started participating in cattle drives — the term given to saddling up on a horse and relocating cattle, sometimes for miles at a time — at the age of eight, which was arduous work for someone that young. “There were times I wanted to quit, not that I ever let on,” Rollins wrote in a guest blog post for Guideposts about his first cattle drive. “The next morning, my entire body was sore. Still, I stood a little taller that day, even if it made my muscles ache more.”

Helping his father with the cow and calf operation — both on his own farm and in the surrounding area — remained a key part of Rollins’ life all the way through his teenage years. After finishing school, he secured his first cooking job and spent four years learning how to cook tasty food in extreme weather conditions and altitudes to feed hunters in New Mexico. However, his first stint as a cowboy cook was cut short as his aging father grew ill and Rollins had no choice but to return home. Suddenly working 20-hour days to keep the ranch afloat, his cooking career ground to a halt.

Kent Rollins has long discussed his close relationship with his father, who he has described as his hero (via Cookery By The Book). He impressed true cowboy values upon Rollins, such as always tipping his hat, watching his language in the presence of women (something he maintains in front of his wife to this day), and holding his head up high if he did not win a rodeo (both in a literal and metaphorical sense, with Rollins applying said knowledge while smarting over his loss on “Chopped: Grill Masters” decades later). Most critically, he taught Rollins the importance of hard work and perseverance — both of which are values that shine through his work today.

Sadly, Rollins’ time with his father was cut short. After he moved home to take over more responsibilities on the ranch, his father passed away. He had been diagnosed with cancer and, according to Rollins, fought a “very long battle.” Rollins used writing as an outlet for his grief — a hobby he still keeps up to this day with his eponymous blog — and realized staying at home on the ranch was more important than ever. “I believe we learn something from everything in our lives, but I wasn’t sure what I would learn from my dad dying,” Rollins told The Oklahoman. As it turned out, “I learned I needed to be at home.”

The aftermath of any loss is always heavy. For Cowboy Kent Rollins, the fact that he had to keep his family’s ranch afloat in the wake of his father’s death only compounded his grief. To keep things ticking, he took on a new job as a road grader for the county highway department. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was a cushy government job that paid the bills and came with a retirement pension (which isn’t exactly easy to come by as a cowboy).

Unsurprisingly, Rollins wasn’t happy. “I missed cowboy culture,” he shared (via Guideposts). “The joy I got from cooking. But how could I give up the security of a government job to chase after a dream?” It didn’t help that cattle drives were growing increasingly uncommon, causing Rollins to fear that he’d simply been born at the wrong time to make this dream a reality. 

Ultimately, it was his mother who convinced him to get back to cowboy life. After opening up about his internal struggles, Rollins quoted his mother as saying, “You need to do what makes you happy … We’ll trust God with the rest. He’ll see us through with the ranch.” Fast forward several years to Rollins making a living as a cowboy cook and it’s safe to say that he’s done just that.

Cowboy Kent Rollins didn’t just lose his father but his beloved mother, too; in 2013, Joy Rollins sadly passed away. Just like his father, Kent Rollins credits his mother with teaching him a lot of important life lessons. When the cold weather and early mornings seemed too daunting as a child, his mother invited him to stay home and help her with the baking and cooking, providing the first spark in his foodie journey.

Living 14 miles outside of town (and the nearest grocery store), feeding the family wasn’t always easy and usually called for some degree of improvisation. “My mother taught me, ‘This may call for this in a recipe, but there’s something that can take its place and you’ve already got it,'” Rollins told Cookery By The Book. Years later, when he competed in “Chopped: Grill Masters,” his wife suggested that his mother’s improvisational ability was part of what helped him get so far on the show. “You learned to improvise and get by with stuff you didn’t even know what it was,” he quoted Shannon as saying.

Rollins has often described his mother as the best cook he has ever known, highlighting her meatballs with gravy and mashed potatoes as her standout dish. Years after his mother’s passing, her legacy lives on through Rollins’ cooking, with the cowboy cook even telling Oklahoma Farm & Ranch that he’s adopted her motto: “Cook what you love and love what you cook.”

Kent Rollins wasn’t the only one working the ranch in his childhood. The youngest of four, he was born in 1957 with two older brothers (Randy and Dale) and Randy’s twin, Cindy. Cindy was born in 1950 with cerebral palsy, an incurable condition that primarily impacts movement and coordination.

According to Rollins, the family supported Cindy by adapting a typewriter so she could compile a collection of her own recipes. “An uncle of ours fixed her a cover that went on the keyboard and my sister could type with her thumb,” he said (via Cookery By The Book). “And she typed recipes that my mother, she’d pin up there and she’d type them … And it was just called Cindy’s Recipes.”

Later in her life, Cindy went to live with Randy and his wife in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. There she became an active participant at the Cherokee Elder Care Center, which she visited on a daily basis. Sadly, Rollins experienced yet another loss in February 2020 when, right on the cusp of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cindy passed away at the age of 69.

When Cowboy Kent Rollins uploaded his Thanksgiving episode on YouTube in November 2022, he wrapped up by making one small request. “I have a procedure the Monday after Thanksgiving, and I just ask y’all to pray about it,” he said in the final minute of the video. A few days later, a post on his Facebook page confirmed that he had undergone a cardiac procedure and was currently in recovery.

A week later, Rollins was back up on his feet — and on the screen. Before delving into his go-to recipe for charro beans (a dish traditionally made to feed hungry cowboys), he revealed in another YouTube video that he had atrial fibrillation (AFib), a heart condition characterized by an abnormally fast and irregular heartbeat, for the past 30 years. In order to come off his medication, his doctors had recommended he undergo a cardiac ablation, which involves using radiofrequency energy or cryoablation to make small scars on the heart to correct the rhythm.

While he was still under strict orders not to “lift anything that weighed over Schnauzer weight,” fortunately, Rollins confirmed that he was healing well. “[God] is the great physician and the great healer, and I thank you for making a petition on my behalf to him,” he added to his loyal subscribers, before later revealing one of the biggest downsides to his procedure: the punishment of only being able to eat turkey bacon, not regular bacon, for breakfast.

Another tragedy struck Cowboy Kent Rollins in 2024. In a video posted to his YouTube channel in June, Rollins casually mentioned that he and his wife had lost their house in the vicious wildfires that had recently swept through Ruidoso, New Mexico. Spurred on by a combination of high winds and dry weather, the fires caused thousands to flee their homes, destroyed at least 1,400 properties, and were declared a major disaster by President Joe Biden.

Fortunately, nobody was home when the fire reached Rollins’ home, but the cook confirmed in a blog post that the house was “a total loss.” The fire reportedly burned so hot that it even managed to melt glass in an oven designed to withstand extreme temperatures. Miraculously, a handful of his beloved cast iron cookware survived, which Rollins recovered by digging through the ashes. 

Some were found to be in good enough condition that he was able to restore several pieces with the aid of a lead testing kit, right-angle grinder, sander, and grapeseed oil. He even shared a YouTube tutorial for others to do the same, should they ever find themselves in an equally tragic situation. If you needed proof that Rollins truly is a master of looking on the bright side of a dark situation, this is it.

June 2024 was a tough month for Cowboy Kent Rollins. Not only did he lose his home in New Mexico, but he also lost his best friend. Taking to YouTube with a video titled “Saying Goodbye To My Best Friend,” Rollins revealed that his beloved pet beagle, Bonehead, had sadly passed away.

Looking back on their time together, Rollins revealed that Bonehead first came into his life when he and his wife, Shannon, were in Wichita Falls and two beagles started chasing their car. The pair took the dogs into their home, with Rollins quickly naming his soon-to-be best friend and giving him the nickname of “The Beag.” Over the years, Bonehead also became known as the YouTube channel’s official taste tester. As Rollins explained, “He was one of them dogs that just brought you happiness … That beagle taught me a lot.”

To commemorate his lost pal, Rollins encouraged subscribers to donate to the Humane Society of Lincoln County, which supports other rescue dogs and rescued multiple pets during the Ruidoso fires. Alternatively, fans could purchase a t-shirt featuring Bonehead on the design to donate to the same charity. Rollins later revealed that both efforts combined raised an impressive $53,000 for the animal rescue group, providing a silver lining to an otherwise tragic event in his life. “The Beag is up there in heaven giving you a tail wag ’cause he’s so proud of you,” Rollins said on YouTube.

When Cowboy Kent Rollins isn’t out on the open plains or whipping up biscuits, he also finds time to make sporadic television appearances. Over the years, he’s appeared in the likes of “Cutthroat Kitchen,” “Kids BBQ Championship,” and “Throwdown with Bobby Flay,” in which his chicken-fried steak went head-to-head against the celebrity chef and won.

One of his most memorable appearances, however, came on the Food Network’s “Chopped.” Like all contestants, Rollins competed against three other chefs for the chance to win $10,000. While he didn’t quite make the cut on his first two attempts (something that caused Rollins many sleepless nights), he was brought back for the show’s “Redeemed or Re-chopped?” episode in 2013.

Things started off well for the cowboy cook, who made it all the way through to the dessert stage. But it was during this round that tragedy struck. Rollins was making bread pudding, which likely would’ve shaped up to be delicious had he not accidentally cut himself and bled into the dessert. As a result, Rollins was automatically eliminated due to the fact that the judges, for obvious reasons, could not sample his bake. Instead it was chef Zoe Feigenbaum who took the crown, despite the fact that her “Baked Alaska” (which was actually a banana and chocolate frozen dessert) was so poorly received that judge Marc Murphy said it may have been better if she hadn’t served anything. Ouch.

Theoretically, Cowboy Kent Rollins is the perfect candidate for Netflix’s “Barbecue Showdown.” The reality series sees contestants compete in a barbecue cook-off for the honor of being named the Barbecue Champion (and winning a cool $50,000 in the process). That’s why fans were excited to hear that Rollins would compete in the show’s third season in 2024.

But sadly, Rollins’ time on “Barbecue Showdown” was brief, as he was eliminated in the third episode, placing seventh. In the eyes of some viewers, this was no accident. Many accused Netflix of giving Rollins unfair criticism and a severe lack of screen time. As one frustrated viewer put it on Reddit, “They did Kent Rollins so damn dirty with both the judging and the editing. He’s an entertaining character and that was clearly tampered down and hidden as much as possible.”

A real sore point for a lot of viewers was inconsistent judging, with Rollins memorably criticized for his liberal use of sauce while the next contestant received praise for the exact same thing. There was also the fact that he was seemingly given the poorest ingredients, such as duck wings and fish — and that he was eliminated for seasoning said fish too well. “Someone had it out for Cowboy Kent,” summarized one Reddit user. “The whole season seemed scripted.” While Rollins himself hasn’t commented on his loss, it’s safe to say that his fans are infuriated enough on his behalf.