The Untold Truth Of Gypsy Rose Blanchard

Feelings Drama

Transcript

00:01After suffering years of abuse due to her mother's Munchausen-by-proxy syndrome, Gypsy

00:05Rose Blanchard aided in the murder of her psychological captor.

00:08She was sentenced to prison for 10 years, but she claims that she now feels freer than

00:11she ever did under her mother's root.

00:14This is her story.

00:15Gypsy Rose Blanchard didn't know her own age.

00:17She just knew that she was deathly ill.

00:19She also knew that she needed to get out.

00:21Her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, suffered from Munchausen-by-proxy syndrome, a mental disorder

00:25in which caretakers exaggerate, fabricate, or in some cases even cause illness in another

00:30person in order to get attention for themselves.

00:33It's often considered a form of child abuse, and Gypsy was confined to a wheelchair and hospital

00:37rooms for much of her life, even though she wasn't actually sick.

00:40Gypsy and her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godijan, conspired to kill Dee Dee, who was found stabbed

00:44to death in her Springfield, Missouri home in June 2015.

00:48Godijan and Gypsy were arrested and charged with murder.

00:51This case has gone on to receive plenty of media coverage, particularly in the HBO documentary

00:55Mommy Dead and Dearest and the Hulu TV series The Act.

01:00In addition to the psychological abuse, Blanchard claims that her mother, Dee Dee, was also physically

01:04abusive.

01:05This included withholding food for days and hitting Gypsy Rose with a coat hanger.

01:08The abuse was bad enough that Gypsy Rose tried to escape.

01:11After one such attempt, her mother literally held her captive by chaining her to the bed and

01:15putting bells on the door.

01:16"...Did you ever fight back?"

01:18"...No, because I was too afraid to."

01:22In February 2011, Gypsy Rose, then 19, met up at a sci-fi convention with a 35-year-old

01:27man who invited her to his hotel room.

01:29Dee Dee found out and brought papers claiming that Gypsy Rose was a minor.

01:32When the mother and daughter returned home, Dee Dee reportedly took a hammer to their computer.

01:37Although Dee Dee Blanchard claimed that her daughter suffered from a variety of illnesses,

01:40in reality, Gypsy has only one occasional physical condition, a lazy eye.

01:44What's more, Gypsy's health has reportedly improved since her incarceration, no doubt thanks to

01:48her no longer taking many medications her mother was giving her.

01:51Gypsy's attorney, Michael Stanfield, told BuzzFeed News that while most inmates lose weight in

01:56prison because the food isn't exactly fine cuisine, the opposite happened for Gypsy.

02:00She gained 14 pounds in jail while waiting to enter a plea in her case.

02:04Gypsy has admitted that she knew she wasn't as unhealthy as her mother claimed, although she

02:08did believe her mother when she told her she had leukemia.

02:11Though the ailments weren't real, the surgeries and their effects were.

02:14The removal of Gypsy's salivary glands, which her mother instigated by applying a numbing

02:18agent to her gums, was particularly painful.

02:21Gypsy has speculated that the numbing agent may have also contributed to her tooth loss.

02:26Nicholas Godejan has reportedly tried to keep in touch with Gypsy Rose since their arrests,

02:29but she doesn't want to communicate with him.

02:31Godejan, for his part, has demonstrated a possibly unhealthy obsession with Gypsy, whom he

02:35met on a Christian dating website in 2012.

02:38Dee Dee knew about Godejan as Gypsy introduced him in hopes of attaining her mother's approval, but

02:43that plan backfired as Dee Dee became jealous and ordered her daughter to stay away from

02:47him.

02:47Gypsy now believes that Godejan was similar to her mother in terms of their controlling

02:51natures.

02:52He had multiple personalities that were violent and scary.

02:56There was at least one physician who didn't believe Dee Dee's claims about her daughter's

02:59illness, a neurologist named Dr. Bernardo Flasterstein.

03:03He told ABC News that when he examined Gypsy for muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy, he had

03:08a feeling that something was amiss.

03:10After he told Dee Dee that he believed Gypsy's prior diagnoses were incorrect, instead of

03:14being relieved, she grew furious and stormed out, screaming to his nurses that Flasterstein

03:18was a quack.

03:19He then wrote Gypsy's primary care physician a letter saying that he suspected Dee Dee had

03:23Munchausen by proxy, although he didn't think the situation was dire enough to contact

03:27Child Protective Services.

03:29Flasterstein wasn't the only doctor with suspicions.

03:31A police report obtained by ABC News claims that one of Gypsy's doctors notified authorities

03:35that they weren't able to detect any symptoms that supported Dee Dee's allegations about

03:39her daughter's illnesses.

03:40Child Services visited the Blanchards' home twice, but claimed not to see anything untoward.

03:45Gypsy Rose was estranged from her father, Rod Blanchard.

03:48She even told ABC News that she never knew her father even paid child support for her until

03:52after her mother's murder.

03:54According to Rod, this estrangement was by Dee Dee's design.

03:57He told Fox News,

03:58"...Dee spent a lot of time making sure that there was distance between us.

04:01A lot of times I would call Gypsy and she wouldn't be available to talk to me but

04:05the next day she was.

04:06I would call her on her birthday, but Dee Dee would tell me, don't tell her it's her

04:0918th birthday.

04:10I don't want to tell her how old she is.

04:12I just thought some of that was kind of weird."

04:14Rod says that though Gypsy is in prison, their relationship has actually improved since Dee

04:18Dee's death.

04:19They email frequently, and Gypsy calls him often.

04:21Gypsy Rose Blanchard believes that she should be in prison, but not necessarily for a decade.

04:25She understands why she's been locked up.

04:27But as she explained on Dr. Phil, she's not convinced that 10 years behind bars is the best

04:31remedy for her.

04:32I don't believe that I'm in the right place to get the help that I need."

04:39Blanchard was sentenced to 10 years as a result of her guilty plea to second-degree murder.

04:43Despite her desire for a shorter sentence, she's admitted that she actually feels, quote,

04:46freer in prison than she did when she lived with her mother, which she's described as a

04:50different type of prison, one in which she couldn't have friends or go outside.

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