Gypsy Rose Blanchard

Blanchard married Ryan Scott Anderson in June 2022 while serving her prison sentence. Following her release, the couple lived together briefly before separating and filing for divorce in April 2024.

After her separation from Anderson, Blanchard rekindled her relationship with Ken Urker, to whom she had previously been engaged in 2019. The couple welcomed a daughter, Aurora Raina Urker, on December 28, 2024, which coincided with the first anniversary of Blanchard's release from prison.

Blanchard was raised primarily by her mother in Louisiana and later Missouri after their home was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Beginning when Blanchard was an infant, Dee Dee falsely claimed her daughter suffered from an extensive array of severe health conditions, including leukemia, muscular dystrophy, sleep apnea, seizures, asthma, and chromosomal disorders. Although Blanchard was able to walk and consume solid food, her mother forced her to use a wheelchair, fed her through a feeding tube, administered unnecessary medications, and shaved her head to simulate the effects of cancer treatments.

Medical experts have characterized Dee Dee's behavior as Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a condition in which a caregiver induces or fabricates illness in another person to gain attention and sympathy. Dee Dee strictly regulated Blanchard's contact with the outside world, prevented her from attending school, altered her birth certificate to make her appear younger, and physically restrained or struck her when she attempted to assert independence.

Around 2012, Blanchard met Nicholas Godejohn on a Christian dating website and began a secret online relationship with him. Over the next several years, the two discussed escaping Dee Dee's control and planned her murder. In June 2015, Blanchard arranged for Godejohn to travel to the family home in Springfield, Missouri, where she provided him with duct tape, gloves, and a knife. Godejohn stabbed Dee Dee to death while Blanchard waited in the bathroom, after which the pair fled to Wisconsin with cash taken from the home.

Following their arrest in Wisconsin, investigators uncovered the extensive medical deception Blanchard had endured. In 2016, Blanchard agreed to a plea bargain in which she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a ten-year prison sentence, while Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Blanchard served approximately eight and a half years of her sentence before being released on parole on December 28, 2023.

The circumstances surrounding Blanchard's life and her mother's murder have been the focus of widespread media coverage, including the 2017 HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest and the 2019 Hulu dramatized miniseries The Act, in which Blanchard was portrayed by Joey King. She was also interviewed from prison on programs such as Dr. Phil and ABC News Nightline.

Following her release from prison, Blanchard became an active public figure, appearing on talk shows including Good Morning America and The View, and publishing her 2024 memoir My Time to Stand. Her post-prison life has been documented in television projects such as The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and the Lifetime series Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up.