Gypsy Rose says she didn't want abusive mother dead despite helping kill her
Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the Missouri woman who was released from prison last week after serving time for helping kill her abusive mother, said her mother was not "a monster" in a new interview that aired Friday morning.
"I don't believe my mother was a monster," Blanchard told "Good Morning America." "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."
Blanchard, 32, served 85% of a 10-year sentence for second-degree murder in 2016, when she was 24, after she plotted to kill Claudine "Dee Dee" Blanchard with her ex-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, in 2015. Dee Dee was stabbed to death in their Springfield, Missouri, home in 2015, and Godejohn is currently serving a life sentence.
"I'm sure that we both have a lot of regrets," Blanchard told "Good Morning America" of her ex-boyfriend's life sentence. "All I can really say is that I did my time. He's doing his time for his part, and I wish him well on his journey."
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Experts believe Dee Dee exhibited signs of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological illness in which Dee Dee projected fake illnesses onto her daughter in an effort to receive attention or material items out of sympathy. Dee Dee convinced Gypsy that she had leukemia, muscular dystrophy and was years younger than her actual age.
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Dee Dee also forced her daughter to take drugs she did not need, removed her teeth and hair, forced her to sit in a wheelchair when she could walk and fed her through a tube in her stomach.
Blanchard admitted to being high on painkillers when she helped carry out her mother's murder.
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"I don't blame drugs. … I don't make excuses," she said. "Now, I'm sober. I haven't used in four years, and I don't feel the need to."
In the days since her release on Dec. 28, Blanchard has risen to stardom on social media and amassed thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram. She currently has more than 6 million followers on both social platforms, on which she has shared photos and videos of herself and her new husband, Ryan Anderson, since she left prison.
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When confronted with questions about how she was handling her newfound fame, Blanchard told reporter Deborah Roberts she feels "conflicted."
"Fame is not what I'm looking for. I always said I think I'm infamous, and then I came out famous," she said. "Honestly, I'm a very shy person. I don't think I'm doing anything that anybody else wouldn't do."
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Blanchard has also been promoting her upcoming book with co-authors Melissa Moore and Michele Matrisciani titled "Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom," set to be released Jan. 9, as well as her three-night Lifetime special, "The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard," set to premiere between Friday and Sunday.
Blanchard's case has been the subject of several documentaries and feature films, including HBO's "Mommy Dead and Dearest," "Gypsy's Revenge" by Investigation Discovery, and Hulu's "The Act."