Gypsy Rose Blanchard has only been a free woman for just over four months. But after eight years in prison, she is not wasting time.
The now 32-year-old was sentenced to 10 years behind bars in 2016 after she pleaded guilty to murder for her role in the killing of her mother, Clauddine 'Dee Dee' Blanchard.
Gypsy orchestrated her mother's murder after being told she was terminally ill her whole childhood. She was confined to a wheelchair, forced to eat out of a feeding tube and subjected to hundreds of unnecessary medical procedures.
As she tried to assert her independence as a teenager, her mother's abuse spiralled into beatings and chaining her to the bed. Gypsy saw killing her as the only way out. She provided her then boyfriend, Nick Godejohn, with the knife he used to stab her.
Since her release in December 2023, she's debuted her husband to the world, broken up with said husband and found the new love of her life (an ex that she met while still in prison).
She's had a makeover, been interviewed by every major publication and network in America, gained tens of millions of followers on social media and then deleted her accounts altogether.
There's a lot to keep up with, so we've done you the solid of collating all of Gypsy Rose's updates in the one place.
A complicated love life.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard married special education teacher Ryan Scott Anderson while still in prison in June 2022.
The pair were originally pen pals before they began a long-distance relationship. In interviews, Gypsy admitted that his letters stood out from the hundreds she received because he was also from Louisiana.
They met after a year of talking, with Gypsy telling PEOPLE after her release that he was "probably the most compassionate soul that I've ever met, and the most patient".
The couple weren't shy about their love in the weeks after Gypsy's release. While appearing on The Viall Files, Gypsy opened up about the first time they had sex when she left prison.
"My husband picked me up and then we drove to a hotel that we got locally. We spent the night, we had our first intimate moments as husband and wife, got to consummate our marriage, which was great," she said, going into detail about how nervous she was and her fears about being naked.
@nickviall TW: SA 🎧Ep 689 of @The Viall Files with Gypsy Rose. #podcast #nickviall #gypsyrose #gypsyroseblanchard #ryananderson #theact ♬ Epic Emotional - AShamaluevMusic
The interview came a week after Gypsy fiercely defended her husband against social media trolls.
"Ryan, don't listen to the haters. I love you and you love me....besides they (sic) jealous because you are rocking my world every night...yeah I said it, the D is fire."
Gypsy happily jumped on the social media bandwagon she'd been denied for so long, posting happy snaps from their life together.
But in March, she announced their breakup on Facebook after just three months together in the real-world.
"People have been asking what is going on in my life. Unfortunately, my husband and I are going through a separation and I moved in with my parent's home down the bayou. I have the support of my family and friends to help guide me through this. I am learning to listen to my heart. Right now I need time to let myself find… who I am," she wrote in a statement obtained by PEOPLE from her private Facebook account.
It was then revealed by PEOPLE that she filed for a restraining order the same day she filed for divorce.
In April, Gypsy revealed that she'd found love again in her ex-fiancé Ken Urker. He also started out as a pen pal, writing to her in 2017 while she was in prison after watching the HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest.
In an interview with E! in 2019 she described him as having a "very big heart" and being "kind of a nerd" like her.
"We became fast friends," Gypsy recounted. "It was pretty soon after that that we started talking on the phone. We would spend hours on the phone. I talked to him like I had known him my whole life and vice versa".
They kissed at their first in-person prison meeting, and Ken proposed in 2018. But their relationship was on-again-off-again. Eventually, it fizzled out and Gypsy instead met and then married Ryan. But as she told her Lifetime docuseries The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, "I always had a hard time letting go....we were so connected at one time that I felt like he was my soul mate".
She also revealed in the docuseries how she and Ryan had a huge fight before their wedding after she admitted to her lingering feelings for Ken.
On TikTok, Gypsy has described her love for Ryan as "once in a lifetime" in a compilation video of the couple driving, kissing and getting matching tattoos together.
@gypsyblanchard.tiktok Once in a lifetime love ❤️ @Ken Urker #gypsyrose #lifeafterlockup #gypsyroseblanchard #gypsyroseonlifetime ♬ Legends - Kelsea Ballerini
In an Instagram video in May, Gypsy's ex-husband replied to questions about their breakup with "a lot has happened" and "I'm hanging in there".
Instant fame and "walking away from the spotlight."
The amount of media attention Gypsy received after her release was extraordinary.
In the space of just one week, she amassed eight million followers on Instagram and 9.5 million on TikTok and appeared on just about every major talk show, podcast and news channel in America promoting her new Lifetime docuseries.
Speaking to a followup Lifetime special Life After Lockup, Gypsy revealed that she was getting a "real culture shock" in the real world.
"Everyone has just gone Gypsy crazy...[and I am getting] death threats in my messages."
Watch the trailer here:
In March, she deleted her Instagram and X accounts, despite being very active on them. She did so after a conversation with her father.
"He gave me some guidance that I feel like it really needed and that guidance was to just show me that real life is something you could touch, something that you would feel, people that you would actually hug," she said. "And with the public scrutiny as bad as it is. I just don't want to live my life under a microscope."
She added, "Social media is literally a doorway to hell. It's so crazy. I can't even wrap my head around what social media is".
She instead created a new verified Instagram account that she made private, but has kept her public TikTok. She took a brief hiatus, but started posting again in May.
A 'glow up.'
Since leaving prison, Gypsy has undergone a nose job, a hair transformation and had a new set of veneers fitted.
She shared photos from her makeover with celebrity makeup artist Alexis Oakley on TikTok, and a video of her singing in a hot pink dress to Sabrina Carpenter's hit single, 'Espresso'.
Gypsy's teeth decayed during her childhood because of the extremely strong medications her mother made her take for conditions like epilepsy, MS and leukemia, which she didn't have.
She also had her salivary glands taken out because her mother claimed she was excessively drooling, which contributed to the tooth rot.
@gypsyblanchard.tiktok 💗💗💗 #gypsyrose #lifeafterlockup @LifetimeTV ♬ ESPRESSO - ._.edits1112
Recently in a 'Get Ready With Me' TikTok, Gypsy talked through all the hair and makeup stages she went through while in prison including her 'tomboy phase' and her more recent look.
"The journey to what I want to look like and what I feel beautiful in and what I feel represents me to the fullest has been a long journey and I think I am finally starting to get the hang of it."
She said she's ready to enjoy her "hot girl era," and doesn't want to get any further plastic surgery or work done.
"I am very happy. I would not change anything else about myself."
A controversial Mother's Day post.
In a video on TikTok for Mother's Day Gypsy addressed her current feelings about her late mother and praised the "mother-like figures" in her life, including her stepmother Kristy Blanchard and her ex-fiancé’s mom Raina Williams.
"It does not go without notice that my own biological mother is not here to celebrate Mother’s Day," Gypsy said.
She continued, "What I choose to feel on Mother’s Day regarding my own mother is that I think the best of her."
"Was she a good mom? No. Was she the best mom in the world? No. But she was still my mom. So, what I choose to feel about her … that’s mine to feel."
She admitted she's been working on forgiveness towards her for years. The video has since been deleted.
A bit more background...
For her whole childhood, Gypsy was told she was sick. Her mother controlled every aspect of her life and most of it, was a lie.
Dee Dee - who suffered from Munchausen by proxy - fabricated and faked Gypsy's medical history, leading her to believe she needed to be wheelchair bound and was suffering from leukemia, asthma, muscular dystrophy and severe brain damage that had reduced her mental capacity to that of a seven-year-old.
Dee Dee was happy to make Gypsy's plight public. The duo benefited from 'make a wish' trips, donations and even a new home built by Habitat by Humanity. News packages from the time show a slight, sickly looking girl with a shaved head thanking people for their support.
Listen: To a deep dive on the case.
As Gypsy matured into a teenager and started to try to gain a bit more independence in the form of boyfriends or friendships, her mother's abuse escalated. Once, she says, she was tied to the bed for two weeks with handcuffs and a dog leash for trying to escape.
Desperate for freedom, she hatched a plan with her then boyfriend, Nick Godejohn, who she was in a long-distance relationship with.
On June 14th, 2015, Nick stabbed Dee Dee multiple times while she slept in her Springfield home. Gypsy hid in the bathroom while he murdered her.
She plead guilty to second degree murder, and upon her release she told Good Morning America: "I don’t believe my mother was a monster. She had a lot of demons herself that she was struggling with.
"I didn’t want her dead. I just wanted out of my situation and I thought that was the only way out."
Feature image: TikTok
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