Credit: @gypsyrose_a_blanchard
*Lifetime’s six-hour documentary series “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard” about Gypsy Rose Blanchard premieres on Friday, with the first installment airing at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET.
We reported earlier that Blanchard, who conspired with an ex-boyfriend to kill her abusive mother in 2015, was released from prison in December 2023 following a 10-year stint in prison.
Blanchard, 32, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2016 and was sentenced to a decade in prison as part of a plea deal. Prosecuting attorneys opted to go easy on Gypsy due to the years of abuse she experienced at the hands of her mentally ill mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard.
In the US, Dee Dee is the most recognized case of Munchausen by Proxy, which Web MD describes as “a psychological disorder marked by attention-seeking behavior by a caregiver through those who are in their care.”
“The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard” features “unprecedented access to Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a victim of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy who suffered horrific abuse and made national headlines for her role in her mother’s violent murder. Gypsy’s shocking story has been told by many others but now she is finally ready to tell her truth before she becomes a free woman for the first time in her life,” per Lifetime.
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The series airs in three installments (each spanning two episodes), with the first dropping Jan. 12, and second and third parts airing Saturday and Sunday at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET each night. If you have cable, you can watch on their local Lifetime channel.
During a recent virtual press event, EUR’s Ny MaGee asked Gypsy Rose how her understanding of her identity and personal journey has evolved since the murder.
“I see myself today as someone that is just basically trying to come out of prison, start her new life,” she said.
“I know that I have been branded something, and I’m just trying to remake myself, reinvent myself into something that my family could be proud of, my husband can be proud of. So I think I’m getting there. I don’t think I’m quite there yet, but I’m liking this new version of myself,” Gypsy continued.
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Gypsy testified during the murder trial that her mother forced her to undergo multiple unnecessary surgeries and use medical devices, such as a feeding tube, an oxygen tank, and a wheelchair.
When asked during the press conference why family or professionals never stepped in and removed her from her mother’s care, Gypsy Rose explained, “I think a big part of it was there was people that had suspicions, family included, but nobody just wants to rock the boat,” she told reporters.
“So it wasn’t brought up to other people, it wasn’t talked about. So people kind of kept their suspicious to themselves just for fear of upsetting my mom, and her ultimately pushing them away as friends or whatnot,” she continued.
“I think that on the professional standpoint, I think that for those doctors that did have suspicions, I think it all has to do with money, honestly. And that’s just my opinion about it. They were making money off of me, and so I think that, in their profession, I think that that came first.”
Gypsy said CPS came to her house at one point but “didn’t ask the right questions,” so “Nothing was ever done.”
“They did come to my house, and basically they were asking me the wrong questions,” she said. “So they were looking … they were like, “Show me your arms. Show me your legs.” And they were checking for bruises. And at that point, my mom never hit me. They wasn’t asking the right questions to me,” she explained.
“… there was no follow-up report or anything. They came the one time, and then they closed the file,” she added.
Gypsy said her mother “became increasingly more paranoid after that visit from CPS, and she actually went as far as to remove the doorbell on the door because she was just so paranoid about them coming back.”
Gypsy agreed to do these confessionals for the Lifetime series because “I wanted to put out something that was very accurate,” she told reporters during the virtual press conference.
“I wanted to put out something that was the truth. So much of what has already been put out there was either by people that honestly, they just didn’t know the ins-and-outs of my case or my life. And ultimately, I think that I’m the source. It happened to me. And so no one has the right but me to share my story,” she explained.
“And that’s why it was important for me to do this docuseries because I can finally be like, okay, I’m ready. I’m emotionally stable at this point. I don’t want to keep being haunted by the past. So this series is me letting go of my past,” Gypsy said.
Several true-crime programs have profiled Dee Dee’s murder, such as the 2017 documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest” and the Hulu series “The Act.” Gypsy noted that the biggest misconception from the fictionalized version of her story is how her mother is portrayed.
“I think people tend to forget that my mom, or at least maybe they don’t even know, that the reason why she was able to snow blind the doctors so much and the community, is because she was so friendly,” she said of Dee Dee.
“So in these shows, they’re portraying her as mean all the time, and that’s not how she was. She was charming, very charming. Very relatable. She would give a hug to anyone. She would like to cook for people. So her personality was bubbly and friendly to the outside world. And then what you see behind closed doors is her hitting me, calling me names and the abuse.”
When EUR asked Gypsy how she navigates the balance between having her story shared in various forms of media and maintaining control over her narrative, she replied: “It’s really hard because as much control as I’d like to have over my story and how it’s shared, I can’t control other people. I can control what I do. I can control what I say, but I can’t control the narrative outside of myself, unfortunately. I wish I could because then there wouldn’t be any missteps or confusion, but I can’t control the planet, so all I can do is do the best I can.”
Gypsy Rose said she is now focused on “making amends with those that were really hurt by not only the crime, but also learning that the people that they knew, meaning my mom and I before I got arrested, and my crime, were not real.”
“They weren’t real people. It was a fraud and we weren’t those people. So now coming out, I just want to make amends with those people and show them who I am and reintroduce myself to these people that I knew from before. And they’re having to learn me now,” she explained.
“Quality time with family, quality time with friends, learning how to cook with my mother-in-law, and Christie, being a good wife, improving myself as a wife, are all personal goals for me right now,” Gypsy Rose said.
“I am married, so I’m now going forward as Gypsy Rose Blanchard Anderson. And what that means for me is okay, reinventing myself as a new person. All right, the prison Gypsy is over,” she continued. “Now, this is a new Gypsy and let’s form this new identity for me and see what I can do. See the power of my voice. I’ve already used the power to share my story for myself. Let’s see if I can share maybe other people’s stories and give them a voice.”
READ MORE: Gypsy Rose Blanchard Released Early from Prison After Plotting Mother’s Murder
