Who Is Gypsy Rose Blanchard?

Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the abuse victim who spent seven years incarcerated for her role in the murder of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, became a free woman on Thursday, leaving prison on parole. 

Her release comes three years early after she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her second-degree murder conviction. During her 2016 trial, Gypsy, now 32, pleaded guilty to conspiring with her boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn to murder Dee Dee and then escape to Wisconsin together. Attorneys for Gypsy acknowledged her role in Dee Dee’s death but revealed that the now 32-year-old, who spent most of her childhood wheelchair-bound, suffered years of emotional and physical abuse from her mother — who experts believed was suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy — creating a complex legal situation. 

Why Did Gypsy Rose Blanchard go to prison?

According to legal testimony, Gypsy was raised by Dee Dee to believe she was physically disabled and mentally ill. Under Dee Dee’s direction, she was forced to undergo years of unnecessary surgeries and medical intervention, including having her head shaved, being bound to a wheelchair, and being fed through a feeding tube. Her mother claimed she had a variety of ailments, like childhood leukemia, muscular dystrophy, and epilepsy. Court testimony from medical experts suggested that Dee Dee was suffering from Munchausen-by-proxy, a mental disorder where caretakers can induce or lie about sicknesses in others. Even when Gypsy was old enough to understand her mother’s beliefs weren’t true, she was forced to lie about her age and continue to use a wheelchair. She said in later interviews that she was also subjected to physical abuse, all while Dee Dee collected fraudulent donations from aid societies like Habitat for Humanity, Ronald McDonald House, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. 

In addition to the physical and mental abuse, Gypsy has revealed in multiple interviews that she was kept secluded from her peers and most close contact with others. She was not allowed to go to school, but she taught herself to read and began to explore online in secret. In addition to multiple Facebook accounts, Gypsy also made accounts on Christian dating websites. It was there she met Godejohn, whom she began a relationship with four days after first chatting with him. 

In an interview in the HBO Documentary Mommy Dearest, Gypsy detailed that her burgeoning relationship with Godejohn quickly became sexual in nature, including explorations of BDSM, sexual video calls, and sending nude photos. “I am embracing my role and duitys [sp],” she wrote in a Facebook status update at the time. “I live and breath to serve my Master.” She also often posed in different characters, named Kitty the little girl, and Ruby the evil vixen — girlfriends meant to complement Godejohn’s alleged multiple personal disorder. 

The two also spoke about Gypsy’s relationship with her mother, and the young woman’s desire to escape her controlling household. The two fantasized about a plan to kill Dee Dee and run away, which they referred to as “Plan B,” according to Gypsy. The plan was considered hypothetical but quickly became real when Gypsy became “desperate” to leave. 

What happened the night of Dee Dee Blanchard’s murder?

In the documentary, Gypsy detailed the tense night the murder took place. “I acted like everything was fine,” she said. She and Dee Dee painted each other’s nails. She put her mom to bed. She left the door open for Godejohn to sneak into the home. And then she claims she listened in the other room while Godejohn stabbed her mother to death 17 times. Godejohn and Gypsy ran away that night, but not before posting on her mother’s Facebook account, “That Bitch is Dead!” Neighbors and acquaintances of Dee Dee’s, concerned by the post, contacted police, who eventually came to the home and found Dee Dee’s body. A neighbor who Gypsy had confided in about her relationship with Godejohn told police, who tracked the couple to his home in Wisconsin. On June 15, 2015, Godejohn and Gypsy were arrested and extradited to Missouri, where they both confessed to the murder. (Godejohn is currently serving a life sentence for the murder, and is not eligible for parole.)

Since Dee Dee’s murder, Blanchard has been the subject of intense media scrutiny, mostly because of the detailed and brutal circumstances surrounding Dee Dee’s murder. Multiple shows have been made about the case, including the 2017 HBO Documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest, the Discovery series Gypsy’s Revenge, the Emmy award-winning drama The Act, and the newest Lifetime Documentary Series The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, which will premiere on Jan. 5. 

In an exclusive interview with People leading up to her release, Gypsy told the news site she feels remorse about the death of her mother. “If I had another chance to redo everything, I don’t know if I would go back to when I was a child and tell my aunts and uncles that I’m not sick and mommy makes me sick,” Gypsy said, “or, if I would travel back to just the point of that conversation with Nick and tell him, ‘You know what, I’m going to go tell the police everything.’ I kind of struggle with that. Nobody will ever hear me say I’m glad she’s dead or I’m proud of what I did. I regret it every single day.”

“She didn’t deserve that,” Gypsy Rose added. “She was a sick woman and unfortunately I wasn’t educated enough to see that. She deserved to be where I am, sitting in prison doing time for criminal behavior.”