Gypsy Rose Blanchard pressed about killing mother: 'Why resort to murder?'
"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin pressed Blanchard on why she plotted the murder of her mother.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard's e-book memoir released Tuesday includes several shocking revelations about her relationship with her mother, her childhood, her faith and more.
Gypsy, now 32, was paroled from a Missouri prison on Dec. 28 after serving 85% of a 10-year sentence for her role in killing her mother, Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard, with help from her ex-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, in 2015.
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Now, Gypsy is telling all in her new memoir, "Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom." Here are the most shocking revelations in the book.
Gypsy shares letter to her mother
Gypsy opens her memoir with a letter she wrote to her mother as an exercise for a mandatory prison class called the Impact of Crime on Victims Class.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2016 for her role in plotting to kill her abusive mother, Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard, in their Missouri home in 2015. (Lifetime/A&E)
"With now having the answers I sought to find, I am able to finally let go of the resentment I held against you and forgive you, and moreover I want to let you know that I’m so sorry for having a part in your death — murder was never the answer or solution," she writes. "There is not a single day that you go unremembered, and I will carry this regret and remorse for the rest of my life."
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She continues, "I will always love you for bringing me into this world, and will remember you with love for the woman I know was a good person behind the mental disorder."
Dee Dee is believed to have suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, also known as factitious disorder imposed on another, which is a form of child abuse.
Dee Dee Blanchard is believed to have suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, also known as factitious disorder imposed on another, which is a form of child abuse. (Lifetime/A&E)
The Cleveland Clinic describes it as "a mental illness in which a person acts as if an individual he or she is caring for has a physical or mental illness when the person is not really sick."
Dee Dee made Gypsy believe she had multiple illnesses, including leukemia and muscular dystrophy, and forced her to shave her head, sit in a wheelchair despite having the ability to walk, and eat through a feeding tube in her stomach. Dee Dee also convinced Gypsy that she was years younger than her actual age.
Dee Dee used daughter's wheelchair to shoplift
Gypsy now realizes as an adult that she experienced deception daily as a result of her mother's mental illness. One such example of that deceit was Dee Dee's insistence that her daughter use a wheelchair despite being able to walk.
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Gypsy goes on to say in her memoir that Dee Dee used Gypsy and her wheelchair to shoplift when Gypsy was "very young."
"Sitting in a wheelchair helps to more easily knock items into your lap and shove them under your princess dress."
"And for items that couldn’t be sat on, or hidden underneath my beanie cap, my mother taught me the barcode swap: remove the barcode sticker from a cheaper item and place it on the more expensive one; then use the self-checkout lane," Gypsy writes.
As part of her Munchausen syndrome by proxy and the made-up illnesses Dee Dee inflicted upon her daughter, the pair received a lot of positive attention from their community in Springfield, Missouri. (Lifetime/A&E)
She described one of the bedrooms in her mother's home as "full of stuff" that was so dense, Gypsy needed to "carve out" a pathway for herself that led from the bed to the door.
As part of her Munchausen syndrome by proxy and the made-up illnesses Dee Dee inflicted upon her daughter, the pair received a lot of positive attention from their community in Springfield, Missouri. They also received large donations from various charities, including a home from Habitat for Humanity and vacations from the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Gypsy realizes she had ‘free will’ thanks to donated laptop
One such gift donated to Gypsy was a laptop, thanks to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
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The nonprofit research organization gave Gypsy a laptop for Christmas when she was 18 (though the charity thought she was 13, according to the memoir), which is when Gypsy said she first realized she had "free will" after searching the internet on her own.
Blanchard, now 32, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for second-degree murder in 2016, when she was 24, but under Missouri law, she became eligible for parole after serving 85% of her sentence. (Investigation Discovery)
"When my mother was knocked out from Ambien, I went on a search for information about the outside world — what friends did together, what relationships looked like, how to kiss, how teenagers spent their day, what kids in classrooms did, and how teenagers spoke," she writes.
Gypsy wrote 'closure letter' to accomplice ex-boyfriend
Godejohn, Gypsy's ex-boyfriend, was sentenced to life in prison for stabbing Dee Dee to death in her Missouri home while Gypsy hid in a bathroom.
"I felt guilty for him being in prison because if he hadn’t met me, he wouldn’t have done what he did," Gypsy recalls in her book. "Responsible. I couldn’t get out of my head that he was looking at going to prison for the rest of his life. I didn’t even realize I was faced with the same possible fate; it didn’t dawn on me that I was as deep in trouble as he was."
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Experts believe Blanchard's mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, had Munchausen syndrome by proxy. (Investigation Discovery)
Gypsy revealed that she and Godejohn tried to maintain their relationship while they were in county jail together and left secret notes for each other in the recreation room, but the relationship didn't last.
In 2019, when Gypsy was in a new relationship from prison with another man, Godejohn wrote her a letter in which he said that she was "committing adultery" and that they "were married" by "God's law."
"I wrote him one letter back, which acted as a closure letter."
Gypsy told Godejohn that she did not want to have a relationship with him and that she had "moved on."
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"I told him I realized he didn’t have much outside experience and I understood that, and I felt a sense of guilt, which is why I testified on his behalf at his trial. I felt that taking accountability for my role was the right thing to do. I didn’t do it out of love, but out of a sense of obligation and due diligence to justice," she writes.
Dee Dee 'told everyone' Gypsy was going to be 'a nun'
Dee Dee "told everyone" Gypsy was going to grow up to be a nun, according to Gypsy's memoir.
Gypsy said she was raised Roman Catholic in Louisiana, but her mother eventually became nondenominational when they moved to Missouri.
"I’ve actually been baptized seven times in my life."
"Five before the murder, one time when I got to County, and the last time when I got to Chillicothe [Correctional Center]. I just never felt clean," Gypsy told co-author Melissa Moore in a phone conversation from prison that is featured in the book.
Later on, Gypsy writes that she believed she was going to become a nun based on her mother's hopes for her future.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Ryan Scott Anderson are seen in New York City on Jan. 5, 2024. (Raymond Hall/GC Images)
"I already thought I was going to be a nun, so I made an altar in my bedroom, where I placed the saints," she writes, referring to mini statues that were sold at a Bible school gift shop. "I aligned my stuffed animals as a congregation, along with my cats, and we’d all attend Little Church. I was the priest. I led us all in prayer and gave out Communion, feeding crackers and grape juice to my cats."
Dee Dee's father allegedly molested Dee Dee and Gypsy
Both Gypsy and Dee Dee alleged that they were sexually abused by Dee Dee's father — Gypsy's grandfather.
While Gypsy has made the allegations in documentaries about her life, including Lifetime's recent docuseries, "The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard," she details new claims about the abuse in her memoir.
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"When I was at real-age nineteen, my mother told me that her father had molested her," Gypsy says in her book. "And I did have a memory from when I was five that I knew was odd. My grandfather drew a bath and made my mom and me bathe with him. My mother told me that when we lived with my grandfather and his wife for a little bit after she had the car accident waiting for her leg to heal that he would take her into other rooms and continue the molesting."
Dee Dee convinced Gypsy that she had a litany of illnesses, including leukemia, and was years younger than her actual age. (Investigation Discovery)
Gypsy made similar accusations in "The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard," which also features an interview with Gypsy's grandfather, Claude Pitre.
"That's the first I've heard of it," he says of Gypsy's molestation accusations against him in the docuseries. He then goes on to blame Gypsy for coming onto him beginning when she was just 4 years old.
"She would try to touch me, and I said, ‘No, don’t do that.' … She started that when she was about 4 years old. … She was trying to touch me," Pitre says in the series.
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Gypsy said the abuse, along with being a victim of her mother's Munchausen syndrome by proxy, has made it difficult for her to recognize love and be intimate. She married her husband, Ryan Anderson, in prison last year.
"Released: Conversations of the Eve of Freedom" is selling for $9.99 on Amazon.
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