Gypsy Rose Blanchard shares her story during an interview to make clear the truths about her life. photo by ABC News
Convicted felon of second degree murder, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, immediately develops a media presence after her release from prison.
The story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard was very popular at the time of her arrest due to how captivating her story was and it then became one of the most widely anticipated prison releases of 2023. For as long as her story has been public, Blanchard has been a widespread recipient of pity and assumptions about her early life and the murder of her mother. Now that Blanchard is no longer imprisoned, she is taking the opportunity to tell her own story.
In June of 2015, Blanchard’s boyfriend at the time, Nicholas Godejohn, murdered Blanchard’s mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. The two had been chatting online for three years and had met in person twice, the second time being when Godejohn murdered Blanchard’s mother. Blanchard was a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, meaning that her mother made up and inflicted illness onto Blanchard so she would appear severely ill. Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a form of both mental illness and child abuse.
After Blanchard developed a relationship with Godejohn, she admitted to him that she was facing abuse at home and the two of them planned how Godejohn would carry out the murder. On June 9th, after Dee Dee had gone to sleep, Blanchard allowed Godejohn to enter the home where he then brutally murdered her with a knife while Blanchard waited in the bathroom. Five days afterward, both Godejohn and Blanchard were caught and arrested. Later, Blanchard pled guilty to second degree murder and received a ten year sentence while Godejohn was sentenced to life in prison for first degree murder after pleading not guilty. Blanchard served eight years of her sentence at the Chillicothe Correctional Center in Chillicothe, Missouri, before she was released on parole.
While in prison, Blanchard was engaged to a man named Ken whom she exchanged letters with when he reached out to her in 2017, after seeing the documentary about her story, Mommy Dead and Dearest. People Magazine also described how their relationship progressed from platonic to romantic and eventually led to their engagement. However, they never married, as the engagement was called off just four months before their scheduled wedding date. In Blanchard’s docuseries with Lifetime, she commented that, “He left me and it broke my heart,” in reference to the end of their engagement. A second man wrote to Blanchard in 2020, Ryan Scott Anderson, whom she married in 2022 during her sentence, as discussed by Today. While she was still in prison, Blanchard and Anderson planned for their typical married life which would take place in Lake Charles, Louisiana, once she was released on December 28th, 2023.
Immediately after Blanchard’s release, she became active on social media, posting on Instagram and TikTok accounts where she shares about her new life outside of prison. Six shows and movies have been released since Blanchard’s arrest and, since her release from prison, she has participated in countless interviews with a variety of sources, with some of these interviews including her husband. Blanchard’s story has taken over both social media and news outlets and has garnered interest from people of all ages. Blanchard is taking every opportunity to tell her story as well as to position herself as an advocate for victims of Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
Blanchard’s story has been relatively popular since it was first released to the public following the death of her mother in 2015. In the time leading up to her release from prison and immediately after her release, Blanchard and her story gained a large following and an immense amount of attention. However, social media users are beginning to question the motivations behind her media tour and whether she deserves the fame and recognition as a celebrity.
