Phil Robertson, the no-nonsense patriarch of the Louisiana family who founded the Duck Commander brand and starred in Duck Dynasty, died Sunday at 79. His family shared last December that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
The Robertsons became Christian reality-TV stars when the series chronicling the antics at their family duck-call business took off in 2012. Each episode of the A&E show, which ran for 11 seasons, ended with Robertson praying over a meal with his extended family, including his brother Si and sons Willie, Jase, and Jep.
Sporting a camouflage bandana and long, gray beard, Robertson regularly referenced the humble roots of the multimillion-dollar hunting enterprise and his own troubled past.
The family’s show set a record at the time as the most-watched reality cable series. The Robertsons went on to pen dozens of Christian books and devotionals as well as a Duck Commander–themed edition of the New King James Version of the Bible. Robertson autobiography, published in 2015, sold more than a million copies, and he turned his testimony into a Christian movie, The Blind, released in 2023.
Since Duck Dynasty, Robertson’s granddaughter Sadie Robertson Huff, introduced on the series, has become a major evangelical speaker and influencer. “It was his testimony that changed his life, our [family’s] life, and thousands of others,” Huff, 27, posted following his death on Sunday. “Now he is experiencing it in the fullness. Fully alive in Christ. The new has come.”
Robertson was an elder at White’s Ferry Road Church, a Church of Christ congregation located down the road from the Duck Commander warehouse in West Monroe, Louisiana. In addition to speaking at churches and Christian events, he taught a Bible class there until December 2024, when he stepped down due to his health.
Robertson and his two oldest sons, Jase and Al, a former minister at the church, cohosted a Bible podcast named for Romans 1:16, Unashamed with the Robertson Family, which aired on the conservative network Blaze Media.
Patriotic and pro-life, Robertson spoke out politically at events like the Conservative Political Action Conference and backed President Donald Trump, whom he met before the 2020 race. He was temporarily suspended from the reality show in 2013 over “coarse language” paraphrasing a Bible verse on homosexuality and sexual sin.
Phil was born in Vivian, Louisiana, the fifth of seven kids who grew up in a log cabin in the woods without electricity or indoor bathrooms. “It was the 1950s when I was a young boy, but we lived about like it was the 1850s,” Phil wrote in his autobiography, describing how the family sustained themselves mostly on what they could garden, hunt, and fish.
By Robertson’s account, his dad, James, went to work in the oil fields, leaving the kids behind with their mother, Merritt, who suffered from psychotic episodes.
In high school, Robertson played football and began dating cheerleader Kay Carroway, whom he married two years later. At Louisiana Tech University, he played as the starting quarterback ahead of future NFL Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw.
After graduation, Robertson taught high school before running a bar and slipping into addiction. He hid out in the woods in Arkansas and left behind his wife, Kay, and their young family. Robertson’s younger sister, Janice, sent pastor Bill Smith to meet with him, saying, “If you could convert my brother, if you could convert him, he would bring many, many people to Jesus.” Phil rejected Smith’s outreach at first.
Kay relied on Smith and his congregation, White’s Ferry Road, during their separation. She also urged her husband to listen to the pastor, and Robertson eventually heard the gospel for the first time from Smith.
“I decided, having been a heathen for 28 years, [to] put on my brakes,” Robertson recounted. “The preacher didn’t have to tell me to repent. I knew what repentance meant.”
Robertson returned home to his wife and family, taking his four sons to fish and hunt in the woods as he did growing up. Robertson began designing his own duck calls in the early 1970s, distributing them on a small scale and supplementing the family income through commercial fishing.
He patented the Duck Commander in 1973, and the business grew big enough to stock in major chains including Cabela’s and Walmart. The company sold over a million calls a year once Duck Dynasty aired. Robertson and his family attribute the success to God’s blessing.
“It was either dog luck, but I am giving the credit to God Almighty in heaven for the duck call sales, for the fish that were in the nets way back, for my life,” he said.
Robertson also saw his sister’s prediction come true. He continued to study and preach the Scriptures as a member of White’s Ferry Road. He said he never looked the part and once led a funeral in hunting clothes since he didn’t own a suit.
He regularly brought up how God had turned him around when he was stuck doing drugs, drinking, and fornicating. He praised the faithfulness and prayers of Kay, who was married to him for almost 60 years.
In 2020, Robertson discovered he had a daughter from an affair during his dark period, and the Robertsons welcomed Phyllis into their family. A devout Christian who saw God’s providence in reconnecting with her biological father, Phyllis joined several family members who shared their testimonies in a series from the organization I Am Second.
Even after the success of Duck Commander and Duck Dynasty, Robertson remained much the same. Kay called him a “a plain, blunt man who loves God.” The family stayed in their Louisiana town. He refused to use a cell phone and hung on to a landline.
“Fame is rather fleeting, as you know, or should know. Money can come and go, and fame comes and goes,” Robertson told The Christian Post.
“Peace of mind and a relationship with God is far more important, so this is the precedent that we’ve set in our lives. The bottom line is, we all die, so Jesus is the answer. Many have told me through the years: ‘I think I’ll take my chances without Jesus.’ And I always come back and say, ‘So what chance is that?’”
The Robertsons will return to A&E without Phil for the first time since 2017 with Duck Dynasty: Revival, which premieres Sunday. The show focuses on his children, his grandchildren, and their young families.
The family announced that they have planned a private funeral for Robertson and will later share details about a public memorial.
