The name Gypsy Rose Blanchard has circulated all over social media and the news in these last few months. But why? What is her story? And why is it so interesting to young people?

Introduction

Blanchard was born on July 27, 1991. She grew up in Springfield, Missouri, was raised by her mother, and is a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. According to the Mayo Clinic, factitious disorder, formerly known as Munchausen by proxy, is a mental illness in which a subject falsely claims that another person has physical or psychological signs or symptoms of illness or causes injury or disease in another person with the intention of deceiving others.

According to Biography.com, Blanchard convinced her then boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, who she met on an online Christian dating site, to kill her mother after years of abuse. Godejohn killed DeeDee Blanchard on June 9, 2015 while Gypsy covered her ears in the bathroom.

The pair was on the run for six days, before getting arrested on June 15, 2015. Blanchard pled guilty to second-degree murder on July 6 of the following year and served eight years of her 10-year sentence. She was released Dec. 28 of last year.

Today

In the last few years, her life story has been adapted into many different TV shows and movies, including “The Act” on Hulu, and “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard” on Lifetime. 

Blanchard has cut all ties with her former boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, and now has a husband named Ryan Anderson, whom she met and emailed back and forth with while imprisoned. The couple said “I do” on July 21, 2022. When news of her early release went public, many people reacted very enthusiastically. She gained hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of likes across many social media platforms shortly after she posted her “first selfie of freedom”. She has recently gained more clout, as she left a suggestive comment under one of her husbands Instagram posts.

Gypsy Rose now resides in Louisiana with her husband, and is close with her father and step-mother. She has made it clear that she is happier now that she is “living her best life”.

Why is she so popular?

Gypsy Rose’s story could be popular among young people for multiple reasons. The individuality of it, her online presence, or the popularity of true crime today.

“I think her story, since the beginning, has kind of gathered a lot of attention because it’s very unconventional, the way she ended up in prison in the first place,” Charlie Giessen, a ninth-grade student at Montclair High School, said. Blanchard’s story is not the traditional homicide case, and her condition and upbringing were very out of the ordinary, Giessen said. According to Medcrave Online, an digital medical research journal, Munchausen syndrome by proxy is very rare in comparison to other types of child abuse.

Another reason could be how open and public she is about everything online, especially personal details. “…Especially since coming out, she’s been very open about her entire process and has been very public about it online, and she just says a lot of things that I think “trigger” people to want to hear more about her.” Charlie Gissen later said. On Jan. 3, Gypsy left a suggestive comment under one of her husbands instagram posts, causing an eruption across all social media platforms. 

She could also be popular because of young people’s interest in true crime. “People are really interested in true crime, and something like this is a really interesting case,” Eva Halbfinger, a MHS ninth-grader, said.

True crime has been a popular interest among young people in about the last 7 years. It started with the booming popularity of podcasts and audiobooks around 2018, then true crime books, movies and TV shows. TV shows like “Dahmer”; “The Act”; “Making a Murderer”; “Law & Order: True Crime” and other shows based on real cases posed as a jumping off point for most podcasts and episodes today.