Gypsy Rose Blanchard has defended her husband Ryan Anderson against negative comments on social media.
The 32-year-old woman - who was released from prison on 28 December after serving eight years of her sentence for the second-degree murder of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard - took to Instagram on 2 January to call out the “jealous” trolls commenting on her relationship with Anderson. Blanchard pleaded guilty in 2016 after an investigation found that she was abused by her mother, who forced her to pretend she was suffering from leukemia, muscular dystrophy, and other serious illnesses.
Underneath a selfie posted by Anderson on his Instagram account, she wrote: “Ryan, don’t listen to the haters. I love you, and you love me. We do not owe anyone anything. Our family is who matters.”
“If you get likes and good comments great, if you get hate then whatever because THEY DON’T MATTER. I love you,” Blanchard continued. “Besides they jealous because you are rocking my world every night… yeah I said it, the D is fire.”
She added: “Happy wife happy life.”
In response to his wife’s supportive message, the 37-year-old commented: “Who said I gave a damn about what these jealous people say anyway, haha...now come get it Baby…”
The couple were married in July 2022 during a small ceremony at the Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri, where Blanchard was released on parole after serving 85 per cent of her sentence. She met the special education teacher in 2020 after he sent her letters while in prison. Just days after Blanchard’s release, she shared her first selfie to Instagram with the caption: “First selfie of freedom!”
Blanchard could be seen posing in a pair of jeans and an ombre blue and white long-sleeved shirt, as she smiled for the mirror selfie. She appeared to have taken the picture in a hotel room, as two of her suitcases were opened on the floor.
In a following Instagram post, Blanchard spoke out for the first time since her release from prison in a video shared on New Year’s Eve. “Hey everyone, this is Gypsy,” she began the video. “I’m finally free!”
Blanchard explained that she was celebrating the holiday with her father, stepmother and her husband. “We’re looking to ring in the New Year together, and it’s gonna be really awesome to have some family time after so long,” she added.
She also took the opportunity to promote her new documentary series premiering on 5 January and her e-book: Released: Confessions on the Eve of Freedom. “It’s not a rehashing of everything that happened. It’s more of my reflection of everything that I have learned and experienced in the last eight and a half years,” she said of the book.
Prosecutors said Blanchard’s mother had Munchausen syndrome by proxy - a psychological disorder where parents fabricate their child’s illness, according to the National Institutes of Health - and subjected her daughter to unnecessary medical treatments over two decades.
Blanchard testified in court that Dee Dee had falsely claimed she suffered from conditions such as leukemia and muscular dystrophy. In a 2017 interview with Dr Phil, she claimed that her mother also shaved her head and forced her to eat through a feeding tube.
In 2015, Blanchard’s boyfriend at the time, Nicholas Godejohn, stabbed Dee Dee at least 17 times at her home in Springfield, Missouri, as Blanchard hid in a bathroom during the assault. Blanchard and Godejohn then stole money from Dee Dee and travelled to Wisconsin by bus.
Authorities were alerted to a post on Dee Dee’s Facebook page - which read, “That B*** is dead!” - and found her body on 14 June 2015. Blanchard and Godejohn were later arrested and charged with murder. She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2016, while Godejohn was eventually found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for murder and 25 years for armed criminal action.
Blanchard recently told People in an interview published on the day of her release that she’s remaining focused on her family and her husband. “My husband Ryan has been an emotional backbone for the last three years,” she said. “We met when the pandemic was really, really strong and I had a lot of emotional ups and downs because of Covid.”
“Ryan has seen me through some really good times, some really hard times. I would say that he is probably the most compassionate soul that I’ve ever met, and the most patient,” Blanchard told the outlet. “God knows, he’s so patient with me, because I could be a lot to handle. I could be an emotional handful.”
Blanchard noted that she and her husband are planning on starting a family of their own, and discussed some of the difficult conversations she may have with her children about Dee Dee one day.
“We’re in love,” she said. “It’s hard because I’m going into a new life and I’m newly married, and I’m going to have kids one day, and I’m going to have to explain to my kids why their grandmother on mommy’s side isn’t around. And that’s going to be a really hard conversation.”
