Lindsie Chrisley Felt ‘Insincere’ Commenting on Nic Kerdiles’ Death amid Tough Times with Sister Savannah

Lindsie Chrisley did what she thought was best.

Following the news of her sister Savannah Chrisley’s ex-fiancé Nic Kerdiles’ death, the Southern Tea podcast host opted not to post a public tribute for the former NHL player. And while that decision ultimately generated criticism on her end, Lindsie made the call for a reason.

“It would almost come across, based off of the events that have taken place with myself and my sister, for me to post something because it would feel insincere,” Lindsie, 34, told co-host Kailyn “Kail” Lowry on PodcastOne’s Coffee Convos. “And I don’t think that we should be living for what we’re posting on social media. We should be living for what we’re doing and our lives personally outside of what the public knows.”

Lindsie also said her decision stemmed from seeing one of Kerdiles’ sisters commenting on a media outlet’s Instagram post, expressing their dissatisfaction with seeing him being linked to Savannah, 26, despite his own accomplishments.

“I had just made a decision that I wasn’t going to say anything publicly at all about it because I felt like it was based off of what the sister said on there, that she didn’t want any association to be tied back to the family and they are grieving people,” she explained.

With that, Lindsie noted that Kerdiles — who was recently working as a Nashville realtor — “had a life long before” he became associated with Savannah. However, in coming to her sister’s defense, Lindsie said Savannah “had absolutely nothing to do” with the public linking her to Kerdiles in the wake of his death.

“She is also grieving, whether they were together now or whether they weren’t,” added Lindsie.

But Lindsie — who also expressed her “deepest condolences” as she wished Kerdiles’ family “strength and comfort and peace” going forward — said she “got a lot of nasty comments” online for sharing photos for her birthday instead of choosing to make a public statement about the tragedy.

“The comments were horrific about people saying that I shouldn’t be posting happy photos when something so sad is going on. And I had sad things going on on my birthday that I chose not to share these photos and had kind of taken a little social media hiatus,” she explained. “… I had said last week that I was going to share my birthday photos and I’ve gotten a lot of messages of people saying are you ever going to share them?”

“So I shared them last night and in this comment section, it was people saying you know this is what’s going on and it’s not appropriate to be posting happy photos,” she continued. “And I just want to talk about that a little bit because I think in the world of social media people live and think that I’m living by my social media feed and that’s the only thing that’s going on in my life.”

Kerdiles died in a motorcycle accident on Sept. 23 at the age of 29. At the time, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department told WRKN News 2 that the retired athlete ran through a stop sign in a residential area north of the Tennessee capital while on his motorcycle at roughly 3:30 a.m.

Authorities said Kerdiles hit the driver’s side of the BMW. Though the other driver appeared to be left uninjured, Kerdiles was taken to a nearby hospital where he later died.

Savannah shared multiple emotional tributes honoring Kerdiles, the first of which was a Boomerang on her Instagram Story of the two sharing a sweet kiss.

“I’m still hoping you respond to my text…” she wrote above the clip before later sharing a beachside pic of the pair with the caption. “Heaven gained the most beautiful angel today … I miss and love you. I’ll forever save our last messages of ‘I love you.'”

The Unlocked podcast host eventually posted a more extensive tribute, noting how Kerdiles’ untimely death “isn’t fair.”

“We had some really great, bright moments, and we had some really hard ones, but the part of our relationship I will hold on to will always be the moments in the middle,” she wrote, in part, in the Instagram post.

Before grieving the loss of her former beau, Savannah had been dealing with the ongoing fallout from big sister Lindsie.

Lindsie shared in June that she blocked siblings Savannah, Chase Chrisley and Grayson Chrisley on social media following a recent fight, but indicated that “everything is fine” between them.

Later, after a source told PEOPLE the siblings were “not fine,” Savannah confirmed on The Viall Files podcast that the two sisters were no longer on speaking terms. She also alleged that Lindsie and her brother Kyle Chrisley — both of whom their father, Todd Chrisley, had during a previous marriage — didn’t treat her mother Julie Chrisley as if she were their mom, even though Julie “always treated them as if they were hers.”

Lindsie felt that Savannah’s comments showed “a complete lack of empathy.”

“You didn’t have parents that were divorced or went through toxic co-parenting and hate each other,” she recently said on her Coffee Convos podcast. “It doesn’t mean that I didn’t love [Julie]. And I said on a previous episode, she could have hung the moon, but she still wasn’t my mother. I still had exposure to my mother.”