On December 28, 2023, Gypsy Rose Blanchard was released from prison after serving an eight-year sentence for second-degree murder. By now, most of us are familiar with Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her story. But as a refresher, Gypsy Rose Blanchard was born on July 27, 1991, in Golden Meadow Los Angeles California. She suffered abuse under her mother, Clauddine Blanchard (Famously known as “Dee Dee”), for the majority of her life due to her mother’s mental illness, Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy.
Now fast forwarding to when Blanchard was 19, in 2011, she met a man named Nicholas Godejohn on a Christian dating site. She told him about how she fell victim to her mom’s mental instability and eventually asked him to kill her mother in 2015. In 2016, Blanchard was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to ten years in prison. After she was taken into custody, her story became an internet sensation and Blanchard was getting intense attention from the media. Her story became even more relevant when a Hulu series was released on March 20, 2019, called The Act. Joey King portrayed Blanchard as the series was made to follow her life, hardships, and the abuse she was subjected to.
I watched the series when it first came out and this was the first time I had ever even heard of Blanchard herself. I thought the performance and demonstration of Blanchard’s life were outstanding and started briefly keeping up with Blanchard and her case after finishing the show. While in prison, the show became popular and so was she. Blanchard started doing interviews in prison and would talk about her case and her relationship with Godejohn. Dr. Phil (Clinical psychiatrist and TV host who interviews people on his show and ‘evaluates’ their issues) interviewed with her during her first year in custody. In the interview, she confessed to coming up with the whole idea of her mother’s murder and also mentioned that she still had romantic feelings for Nicholas. At this point, Blanchard was a victim in the public eye and her sweet innocent persona only encouraged the justification of her involvement with the case and this idea about her. Her story is unique and tragic, which is why I, and many others, find her life and innocence after the fact, intriguing. Many of those who personally knew Blanchard (Supporters, family and friends) and her story believed she should not have served a sentence in the first place and put the majority of the blame on Nicholas. She herself has admitted that she deserves the time she served in an interview. Personally, I agree with Blanchard, though she was a victim, she still committed a murder and the fact that it was her mother makes the crime feel more malicious.
As soon as Gypsy made parole and was released from prison, she joined social media and gained a following almost immediately. Blanchard had an active Instagram before her release run by her organization but decided to have her own personal account after she was let out. Everyone knew about Blanchard, whether it was from the popular series or social media, and it was nearly impossible to avoid her on your feed. When I heard about her rising on social media, I was excited. I was delighted to continue to support someone I’ve been following for a while and get to view her life more closely. It was also a given that she was going to be all over social media as her story is so big and this was her first time with true freedom. In the care of Dee Dee, Blanchard was trapped and sheltered from society. Her reality was so tainted that she did not understand the world around her. With that, the adaption she is having to this new world she never knew about is pretty fast. Immediately is an understatement for how quickly she started entertaining the press. But it’s hard to blame her for this as she has been seen as a victim for so long, and now she’s happy and wants to show the world. However, what’s throwing me and a lot of other followers off about her publicity, is how fast she started doing the plethora of interviews, then mentioned a book, talked about participating in a docuseries, and now has a movie being released. The overwhelming amount of media coverage and fame she is trying to achieve in such a short amount of time is a little concerning and makes it more difficult to maintain her “innocent” persona.
The biggest issue that arises with Blanchard not taking her time with the media is that so much can happen to someone’s public image with one wrong move. Saying social media is extremely sensitive is an understatement, meaning anything she does could be the cause of her “cancellation”(the termination of one’s influencing career by the media, due to socially unacceptable actions) in society and her career will essentially be over. Because of being held back from using any kind of technology in her mother’s care and during her sentence, she does not understand the kind of cautiousness one has to have when putting your life out to the world. The platforms she has chosen have also influenced people’s ideas about her.
The two main platforms she has chosen to share her life on are Instagram and TikTok. TikTok is the leading platform responsible for recognizing Blanchard’s name and making her so famous, It is also how I found out about her release from prison. Before she was released on parole, her name was trending and everyone was excited for her to be free. The first thing she posted was a selfie in her hotel. Not long after, she went on several interviews and started posting constantly. It was not long before people started making memes of her, quoting her comments, etc. A comment she made under her husband’s Instagram post, sent the whole world into shock. One line in particular, “And the D is fire” caught the media’s eye, and soon, everyone was reposting and talking about it. Hearing about this made me like her even more because she seemed so funny and human. Everyone entertained and praised her for the success she was having so soon after being released from prison. But like me, many agreed that all this attention could potentially backfire. Blanchard interviewed with The Viall Files, a broadcast show on TikTok, and talked about her feelings towards Godejohn and his involvement with the case. In this interview, Blanchard makes extremely bold statements towards her ideas about her mother’s murder. She explains how even though she is the one who initiated the idea of her mother’s killing, Godejohn wanted it to happen, essentially blaming him for the murder. Blanchard then goes on to explain how Godejohn had dark fantasies and how she had no part in the actual killing itself. The way she deflects the blame off herself publicly gives the parole board, and society reasons to not believe her remorse. However, some supporters believe she is just trying to advocate for her hardships and touch the lives of those who are going through what she did. But with social media, sometimes messages can be tainted.
In January of 2024, Blanchard deleted all of her recent posts on Instagram and TikTok about her personal life. It seems as though she is keeping her social media strictly for educating her followers about Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy and mental health awareness for now. After just two and a half months of her release, she’s managed to swoop the media off its feet, only time will tell what she has planned for us all next.
