Please be advised that this story contains discussion of murder, child abuse, and mental illness that some listeners may find upsetting.
[@gypsyroseblanchard727 on TikTok, Gypsy on tape] Hey everyone, this is Gypsy. I’m finally free!
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is free … after spending eight years behind bars for the 2015 murder of her mother Dee Dee. And it’s something the internet has been looking forward to for a long time.
[scrolling through TikTok feed: scattered clips of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, quotes from The Act, etc.]
Let’s take a step back.
[KY3 News on YouTube, Gypsy on tape] It is the perfect town. The perfect place. I think it was a blessing in disguise …
[music: “Apollo Diedre” by Blue Dot Sessions]
Gypsy Rose was born in 1991 in Golden Meadow, Louisiana, and she and her mother later moved to Springfield, Missouri. To their community, they were a normal family who had experienced immense hardship … Gypsy had various physical and mental disabilities. Muscular dystrophy left her wheelchair-bound. Brain damage meant she had the mental capacity of a seven-year-old. Epilepsy, digestive tract issues, and hearing and vision impairment meant she was in and out of surgery and spent most of her time at doctor’s appointments. Though it all though, they remained hopeful.
But there’s one problem …
[music stops]
none of it was real.
[TMJ4 News on YouTube, officer on tape] I want to start out with saying things are not always as they appear.
Gypsy Rose is a victim of fictitious disorder imposed upon another, previously referred to as Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Essentially, Dee Dee told her daughter from a young age that she was sick … she needed a wheelchair, she needed to see the doctor, and so on … even though she was perfectly healthy. Dee Dee controlled every aspect of Gypsy’s life.
But as Gypsy got older, she began to push back against her mother’s authority, meeting her then-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn online. Gypsy said in interviews that she felt there was only one way she could free herself from her abusive mother. Gypsy and Godejohn hatched a plan and carried it out … they murdered Dee Dee in June 2015.
[music: “Bauxite” from Blue Dot Sessions]
After the murder, Gypsy and Godejohn were both sentenced to prison. The community that once loved Gypsy and Dee Dee was conflicted as they discovered for the first time the sick girl they knew wasn’t sick, and her mother had defrauded doctors and neighbors alike.
Godejohn was the one who carried out the crime. He was charged with first-degree murder and is spending life behind bars. But Gypsy’s time is over … she was charged with second-degree murder for a reduced role in the plot. She served 8 years of her 10 year sentence and was released on parole December 28.
LIZ CASOLO: You know, I’ve known about her for a long time. I’ve definitely seen a couple of documentaries about her family dynamic many years ago. Which, I don’t think is, shockingly, the case for the vast majority of people who are just now talking about her online, which I find super interesting. I feel like they get surprised when they realize the full narrative.
That’s Liz Casolo, a Medill junior. In the month since Gypsy’s release, she’s taken to social media, TV, podcasts, and more to tell her story. But like Casolo said, the majority of the internet doesn’t know the true extent of the abuse Gypsy endured.
CASOLO: I think the problem has to do with the fact that people are placing really unreasonable expectations on someone who’s been so isolated from society for so long. So when people don’t know her full story and they’re surprised and they communicate that online, it’s a little bit of an upsetting thing to do. Like you couldn’t choose to inform yourself on such a big case if you’re going to be speaking about it publicly? Because that could then propagate misinformation.
It seems like Gypsy is enjoying making videos, participating in interviews, and telling her side of the story for the first time. She posted a selfie on Instagram the day she got out … captioned “first selfie of freedom” … she regularly makes O-O-T-D’s for her fans on TikTok, and she had her first television interview post-release with ABC’s 20/20 last Saturday. But there’s concern … Casolo and others say it might be too much, too fast.
CASOLO: I have seen a couple of dialogues online about people who are genuinely concerned about people placing really high expectations for her online behavior, and worshipping her essentially. You know, she’s been in the public space for a while but she hasn’t been out of prison for long. I think that’s a really intense level of scrutiny to live under.
[music: “Fissure Forming” by Blue Dot Sessions]
All of the Gypsy Rose content floating around raises an important question … why do we find her story interesting? Legal Studies and American Studies Professor Nicolette Bruner suggests it may be because we’ve never heard anything like it before.
NICOLETTE BRUNER: I will say there are some aspects of this story that are compelling because they transgress a lot of our accepted norms in provocative ways. So, for example, the idea that a mother could be deliberately sickening her child. The idea of ‘oh, the mama bear, who’s protecting her child, who’s standing up for her child.’ And then to find out that that was a complete inversion: that, instead, somebody who’s being described as having the cognitive ability of a seven-year-old that is actually a mentally competent adult like you or I is shocking, and we are drawn to shock.
Shock is a common thread that weaves through Gypsy’s story: everything from the initial murder … to the revelation that she wasn’t sick … all the way to today, when she’s becoming the internet’s newest celebrity. She has around 8 million followers on Instagram and just under 10 million on TikTok.
BRUNER: I think that the story was initially interesting because, at first, it was a disabled child in danger to ‘what happened here?’ ‘how were we all so wrong? ‘how were so many people for so many years so wrong? And now, I think, not only is it hearing from a convicted murderer, but I also think, like I was saying earlier, the fact that she gets to speak and we get to listen, made particularly poignant by the fact that this is a person who was not allowed to speak and not treated as if she had anything to say.
America is listening to Gypsy. She’s created a 6-episode Lifetime docuseries, where she connected her past to the present: a new start with her husband, Ryan Anderson. But just because America’s listening doesn’t mean everyone supports her. She recently said this in an interview with podcast host Nick Viall …
[The Viall Files on YouTube, Gypsy on tape] I don’t want to have to remind people every single time that I’m not the one that committed the act of the kill. So I’m a part of it, but in the State of Missouri there’s no such thing as accessory to murder.
… and it hasn’t landed well on social media.
RUTH DEBONO: Before she got out of prison, I saw everybody was so excited for her to get out of prison. But now, I started seeing people turning against her on TikTok, and I was like ‘whoa, I didn’t expect that.’ I’m sure that it’s different demographics of people. But that was really interesting to me because it feels like … honestly, I mean those people probably just want to hate on her to some extent … but also people are saying ‘oh, she’s a murderer.’ And people have totally different opinions than what I had seen really anybody saying before she got out of prison.
That’s Weinberg sophomore Ruth Debono. They said even though there’s some Gypsy Rose hate swirling around online, consensus is that if she’s okay with sharing, we’re okay with listening. And many fans say this type of attention isn’t new for her, either … she’s been on camera since she was a kid.
DEBONO: I’m sure in some ways it’s different. Because, I mean, she appears to have a little bit more agency overall. But I’m also sure that having, in her childhood, the cameras on her a lot, then going to prison and still having the cameras, I’m sure that also probably influenced her in terms of … that might even be something that feels comfortable and natural to her. So I’m sure now she has a little bit more … she can feel a little more in control of that. Although I guess she was somewhat in control of it in prison, but she has a little more control of how the media views her and things. It might feel comfortable and natural to her.
[music: “Jumbel” by Blue Dot Sessions]
For now, it looks like Gypsy is enjoying the spotlight, and the internet is along for the ride. Her most recent achievement? Making national entertainment news for cutting her hair and donating it to a foundation that makes wigs for people with cancer. She posted a TikTok shortly after.
[@gypsyroseblanchard727 on TikTok, Gypsy on tape] Hey, y’all. So as many of you probably already saw last night, I cut my hair.
But above all, she’s encouraging her fans to stick around.
[@gypsyroseblanchard727 on TikTok, Gypsy on tape] Again, thank you guys for all the support, and keep watching. Bye!
For WNUR News, I’m Brandon Kondritz.
