An apparently simple selfie of an American woman quickly collected more than 1.2 million likes on Friday, even though you probably don’t know her name. It concerns Gypsy Rose Blanchard (32), who dominated the media in the US in 2015 and now again with her life story. Who is this woman and why is the new selfie so charged?
The life of Gypsy Rose Blanchard from Missouri reads like a tragic series. There is also: her story is internationally known from The Act from 2019 with actresses Joey King and Patricia Arquette, who received an Emmy and a Golden Globe for it. King played Blanchard and Arquette her mother Clauddine, also called Dee Dee. She was stabbed to death in her sleep by Blanchard’s boyfriend in 2015. The daughter had given him the knife and asked him to do so.
“I wanted to be free from her grip on me,” she said. “I put him up to it.” Because Gypsy had been a prisoner of her mother all her life. According to Gypsy’s lawyer, Dee Dee suffered from Munchausen syndrome, the news agency writes AP. Parents pretend that their children are sick or make them sick in the hope of gaining sympathy.
Dee Dee convinced the outside world that her daughter had serious conditions, including leukemia, epilepsy and a muscle disease. She reportedly forced her to use a wheelchair, tube feeding and an oxygen tank. The woman misled doctors by saying Gypsy’s medical records were lost in Hurricane Katrina, Gypsy’s attorney said. If a specialist asked too many questions, she looked for a new one.
To reinforce her story, she shaved Gypsy’s head. He was in perfect health, but underwent several unnecessary interventions. Dee Dee allegedly put a numbing agent in her mouth, told doctors she was drooling too much, and then had her salivary glands removed.
Beaten and chained
The mother milked the situation, AP writes. She and her ‘critically ill’ daughter received free trips to Disney World, a meeting with country star Miranda Lambert and even their own house. Behind the front door, the abuse became increasingly serious: according to Gypsy, she was beaten and her mother chained her to a bed.
Only slowly did she realize that she was not as ill as her mother said. That was difficult at a young age: “If the outside world says that your mother is a wonderful, loving and caring person, what other impression can you have?” her lawyer said.
Patricia Arquette en Joey King als Dee Dee Blanchard en Gypsy Rose Blanchard. © Hulu
This had to stop, Gypsy thought. She sought rapprochement with the outside world and met Nicholas Godejohn through a dating site, writes BBC News. She got him to kill her mother. She obtained a knife and hid in the bathroom while Godejohn stabbed the woman to death. The two fled by bus and were apprehended in Wisconsin.
Godejohn received a life sentence, Gypsy a deal because of her suffering. According to AP, she first faced a murder charge and also a life sentence, but now she pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received ten years in prison. On Thursday she was released conditionally after eight years. Her release has dominated social media and American sites for days. Photographers followed her first steps as a free person, including to a shoe store.
Married in jail, now children
The caption makes it clear how charged the new photo is: “The first selfie in freedom,” she writes. Free from the cell and her mother. She mainly receives support in the thousands of responses. But: “Nobody will ever hear me say I’m glad she’s dead or that I’m proud of what I did,” Gypsy told People. “I regret it every day.” Because: “She didn’t deserve this. She was a sick woman and I wasn’t educated enough to see that. She deserves to be where I am, in prison for criminal behavior.”
Gypsy is now focusing on the future with her husband Ryan Anderson (37), a teacher who wrote to her while she was in prison. They got married last year and are thinking about children. That will be difficult. “One day I have to explain why the grandmother on my mother’s side is no longer there. That will be a very difficult conversation.”
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2023-12-29 18:56:15
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