Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the woman whose story of being forced to fake childhood leukemia and other illnesses until she convinced her boyfriend to kill her mother inspired the Emmy-winning Hulu series “The Act,” was released from prison Thursday.
Blanchard, now 32, was let out of a Missouri jail after serving 85% of her 10-year sentence on her second-degree murder conviction, according to The Associated Press.
Before her case was depicted in the true crime series that starred Patricia Arquette and Joey King, Blanchard was the focus of intense public attention following the 2015 slaying of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard.
Dee Dee essentially kept Gypsy Rose a prisoner for much of her childhood, shaving her head, forcing her at various points to use a wheelchair and even a feeding tube and telling doctors and others that she was developmentally delayed. The girl, however, was perfectly healthy.
Dee Dee Blanchard had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder that drives parents or caregivers to seek sympathy through the exaggerated or made-up illnesses of their children, the daughter’s attorney said in court. “People were constantly telling Dee Dee what a wonderful mother she was, and Dee Dee was getting all of this attention,” he said.
The attention included a free trip to Disney World, a home from Habitat for Humanity, a meeting with country star Miranda Lambert and multiple charitable donations.
The girl was misled into believing she was sick as a child, but as she grew up, her mother became more physically abusive and even chained her to a bed. She testified at the 2018 trial of her former boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, that she talked him into stabbing her mother because she “wanted to be free of her hold on me.”
Godejohn is serving a life sentence in the murder. Gypsy Blanchard married another man, Ryan Scott Anderson, now 37, of Saint Charles, Louisiana, while she was behind bars.
The case was also the subject of the 2017 HBO documentary, “Mommy Dead and Dearest.”
