Billy Strings is opening up about the unexpected death of his mother, Debra Apostal, which happened in June.
Strings — whose legal name is William Lee Apostal — says his mom wasn’t sick leading up to her death. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, he had no idea what killed her.
“We’re all sitting around — ‘Oh man, I wonder if it was an aneurysm? I wonder if it was a heart attack? Think she had a blood clot?'” Strings recounts during a recent conversation on the Dopey podcast, which is hosted by David Manheim and centers around stories of drug addiction and recovery.
“She just died like that. Like, wow, that’s so crazy,” he continues.
How Did Billy Strings’ Mother, Debra Apostal, Die?
Strings didn’t find out his mom’s cause of death for sure until he got an email with her death certificate. He was on tour in Australia at the time.
“Methamphetamine intoxication,” he reveals. “And I didn’t know that she was using.”
“I was like, I was in denial even before that. I was like, ‘Yeah, it ain’t gonna be nothing like that,” Strings admits.
Five months after his mother’s death, Strings is still processing the tragedy. Even with her cause of death in hand, the singer says he still doesn’t understand the circumstances that led up to the devastating incident.
Read More: 18 Country Stars Who Are Committed to Sobriety
“For a second there, I didn’t know what the f–k happened,” he reflects. “I still don’t, really. I don’t understand. I guess I never will, and I just need to f–king let it go.”
In this conversation, Strings laid bare all the pain, guilt and anger he continues to feel about losing his mom to a drug overdose.
“I was f–king pissed. You know, just, to me, it was so f–king stupid,” he says at another point in the interview. “…Like, really? This is how my mom f–king dies? This is f–king stupid, man. It just was unnecessary. And i still don’t f–king know really what the f–k happened.”
When Did Billy Strings’ Mother Die?
Debra Apostal died on June 19, 2025, just hours after Strings played a hometown show in Lansing, Mich., about 35 minutes from his mom’s house.
After that show, he and his crew drove through the night to make it to the next day’s show in Kentucky, and Strings finally fell asleep at about 5:40 AM. He’d been sleeping for about three hours when his wife woke him up with the news that his mother had died.
Read More: Billy Strings Reveals His Mom, Debra Apostal, Has Died
Strings chose to carry on with the show that night, telling the crowd that that was “what my mom would have wanted me to do.”
From the stage, he described how he “just put my shoes on and started walking” when he first learned his mom had died, and how he wound up at a church, where a “kind lady let me in and she stayed with me and prayed with me for a while.”
Who Are Billy Strings’ Parents?
Strings’ biological father died of a heroin overdose when he was 2 years old. The man he calls “dad” is his stepfather Terry Barber, a bluegrass musician.
Strings has spoken about how his parents fostered his love of music from an early age, recounting in particular how they brought him to his first bluegrass festival when he was 4 years old.
At 33 years old, Billy Strings is one of the brightest rising stars of Americana, bluegrass and alt-country. He is a decorated artist whose Live Vol. 1 album won Best Bluegrass Album at the 2025 Grammy Awards.
Strings married his longtime girlfriend Ally Dale in 2023, and their first child, a boy, was born in September 2024.
R.I.P.: 40 Country Singers and Songwriters Who Died Too Soon
These country singers had so much more to give. See 40 country singers who died much too soon: Keith Whitley, Mindy McCready, Troy Gentry and more.
Gallery Credit: Billy Dukes
