At the centre of the popping flashbulbs and rolling cameras is one of the world’s most famous former felons Gypsy Rose Blanchard… and she has been transformed.
She gained international notoriety after helping her boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn to murder her mother Dee Dee Blanchard - who had Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy - after years of horrific abuse.
Released on parole on December 28, eight-and-a-half years into a 10 year sentence, she appeared in a TV docuseries filmed in jail with porcelain pale skin, a long mane of chocolate brown hair and was self-conscious about the weight she had gained on a prison diet.
But that was six months ago.
The Gypsy we see today - preparing for the release of a new 8 part docuseries, Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up - has a glowing tan highlighting her newly straightened nose, a shoulder-length blonde hairdo, a chic new wardrobe, a new tattoo and a slimmed-down physique.
Daughter who ordered killing of mum who forced her to fake cancer to leave jail
She has met Kim Kardashian and has over 14 million followers on social media, with fans claiming to be “tipsy for Gypsy.”
Since leaving jail, Gypsy has achieved cult status on TikTok, with her prison makeup hacks and recipes - like making a prison-style energy drink with only four ingredients.
And yet she still claims she wants to use her profile as a force for good and to help people trapped in situations like the one she was in. Once you hear about her truly hideous childhood, it becomes understandable why Gypsy is a mass of contradictions.
One minute she is enchantingly childlike, telling The Mirror in an exclusive interview how much she loves the Royal family and revealing her favourite royal: “It’s Princess Kate. She’s just so classy. She’s a sweetheart.
Gypsy Rose has completely transformed since leaving prison (Getty Images)
She has a new nose and haircut, and a completely updated wardrobe“I watched Kate and William’s wedding live and I’ve always just found British culture really interesting.”
The next she is deeply reflective. She takes a moment to think before talking about Dee Dee, who put her through 30 operations, including the unnecessary removal of her saliva glands and insertion of a feeding tube, and forced her to pose as a wheelchair-bound invalid with muscular dystrophy and leukaemia.
“I now feel more sympathy towards my mother,” she said.
“I regret the fact I made the decision to end her life as a way out.”
While she seems to lap up the attention she attracts, in a recent US TV interview she insisted: “Fame is not what I’m looking for.”
Gypsy, who found prison a “positive experience,” did think she had found what she wanted when she married her prison pen pal, teacher Ryan Scott Anderson, 37, in Missouri’s Chillicothe Correctional Centre on July 20, 2022.
Mum murderer forced to take sickness to be unlikely celeb upon release from jail
Gypsy Rose Blanchard's first docuseries covered her life behind bars (Crime+Investigation)But in March Gypsy - who is now living with her dad Rod Blanchard and stepmother Kristy in Louisiana - announced that they had separated.
And days later she was spotted with her ex-fiance - another prison pen pal - Ken Urker, who she got engaged to in October 2018, before they parted in summer 2019.
In April she announced she was divorcing Ryan, soon after making her romance with Ken, who will imminently be moving to New Orleans, official.
Speaking about him in a recent US TV interview, Gypsy, became coy and girlish.
Directing her words at Ken, she said: “If you’re gonna propose, don’t tell me, just do it.”
Gypsy Rose with her mum, Dee Dee (Crime+Investigation)Clearly, he has not been far from her thoughts since their relationship ended.
For, just days before marrying Ryan, Gypsy was seen on camera saying: “I have always had difficulty letting go of my ex-fiancé Ken. I felt like he was a soul mate.”
Devastated when they parted, she believes partly because of her notoriety, Gypsy - who was advised by her stepmother and stepsister Mia, 22, not to get married in jail - was also seen having a row on the phone with Ryan 12 days before their wedding.
She had told him: “I had a dream about my ex,(Ken). In that dream I left you for my ex.”
Ryan replied: “F***, we’re getting married in, like, 12 days.”
They made up and the wedding went ahead after she told Ryan that Ken wanted to be with a “bimbo.”
Gypsy Rose thought the only way to escape her abusive mother was to kill her (Crime+Investigation)Gypsy’s yo-yoing emotions become more understandable when the scale of dysfunction she experienced as a child is taken into consideration.
Her mother’s madness and consequent cruelty was so extreme that she thought she could only escape her clutches if she killed her.
And on June 9, 2015, high on painkillers - an addiction she has now proudly kicked - Gypsy hid in the bathroom of her Missouri home, as the boyfriend she’d met on the internet, Nicholas Godejohn, stabbed Dee Dee 17 times with a knife she stole from Walmart.
The desperate act followed years of unbearable abuse.
As well as the unnecessary surgery and fake illnesses, Dee Dee altered Gypsy’s birth certificate, making her 15 when she was 19, conned their community in Springfield, Missouri, into providing a specially adapted home for her and shaved her head, so she looked like she was having cancer treatment.
“I didn’t even know that I had curls until after I got arrested and grew my hair,” she told The Mirror.
Gypsy, who still cannot understand how no one in the medical community realised that the illnesses were fake, also says Dee Dee kept her from seeing her dad, who left when she was a baby.
She continued: “A bond between father and daughter is something really special and I was robbed of that my whole life.”
She has big plans for her life now
Her new show is out later this month (Annie Flanagan)But she is making up for lost time and says she has a “great relationship with my stepmom Kristy.”
In contrast, her natural mother - who she confesses she once shot with a BB gun - put a Voodoo hex on her to stop her finding love.
She also chained her to a bed for two weeks after she once managed to escape with a boy she met online.
Gypsy’s next ill-fated online relationship was with Godejohn, who took her virginity in a cinema toilet, after he pretended to be a friendly stranger who had ‘bumped into’ her and Dee Dee when they had a rare outing to see a film.
She is pragmatic when asked about Godejohn - who is now serving life without parole for first degree murder - simply saying: “I hope he does his time in a constructive manner and finds purpose.”
But she asks for no sympathy for herself, adding: “At the end of the day I’m a murderer. And that’s just the harsh reality of it.
“I committed a crime, but that doesn’t define who I am. I accept what I’ve done. I paid my dues.”
Wanting her story to be a “cautionary tale,” to warn anyone else who feels trapped not to take the same escape route as her, she admitted recently: “I don’t make excuses. There is no excuse for committing murder.”
Gypsy Rose says she expects no sympathy (Crime+Investigation)And she still hopes one day to use her profile to help people with mental illness and victims of Munchaussen’s.
She told The Mirror: “I can bring light to the situation and be a voice for the voiceless. I want to spread awareness of mental health and awareness of Munchausen syndrome by proxy as, obviously, it’s what my mum had.”
She is also keen for people to know that her mum was not a monster, but had a mental illness. She said: “I hope she would be proud of the woman I am becoming, the woman that I have built myself up to be today.”
But fame has brought a certain amount of misfortune for Gypsy, who has received death threats in her direct messages and has turned off comments on her social media, because of mindless abuse.
Her reaction has been philosophical.
Speaking on US TV, she said: “Quite honestly, I am starting to feel like they (her critics) want a perfect victim and there is no such thing as a perfect victim.
“In their mind a perfect victim would have died. And so now that I survived and the perpetrator of the abuse is the one that died then I’m getting the hate. “
- Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up will premiere on Crime+Investigation and from Monday 10th June at 9pm.
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