Social media has already found an it girl for 2024: Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a Missouri woman who persuaded her then-boyfriend to kill her mother after being forced to pretend that she was suffering from leukemia and other serious illnesses.
Blanchard, who is 32, was released from a Missouri correctional center just days before the new year. She served eight years in prison for her part in the 2015 murder, while Nicholas Godejohn, her ex-boyfriend, received a life sentence. The shocking case got the TV treatment in Hulu’s 2019 miniseries The Act, and was also the subject of HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest.
Now, the excitement is playing out on Instagram and TikTok, where Blanchard has become an overnight star with 5.9 million and 6.1 million followers respectively. Though the social media accounts were created in the months before her 28 December release to promote an upcoming Lifetime docuseries, Blanchard gained the most attention with her “first selfie of freedom”. The photo shows Blanchard posing in a mirror with a long ponytail pulled over her shoulder, and it received thousands of comments from well-wishers – including the official Instagram account for Bratz dolls (“Slay my girlie!!!”), plus influencers like Tana Mongeau (“YES!”) and Trisha Paytas (“QUEEN”).
Blanchard also shared a photo with her new husband, Ryan Scott Anderson, who she married while behind bars: “A New Years Eve Eve kiss with my hubby,” she captioned it. Later, Blanchard showed off her diamond wedding ring and French manicured nails. The responses were just as effusive. “Girly already dripping first day out,” one Instagram user commented. “Less than a week out and have a fresh set. You’re killing the game queen,” another wrote.
Blanchard’s fans have looked forward to her release since she was granted parole in September. She benefited from the true-crime treatment of her mother’s death, and she’s now enjoying a redemption arc, with followers thrilled to watch her next moves as a free woman. And though her latest posts might be, well, sort of boring, the reaction to them is quickly building her into an unlikely folk hero.
It doesn’t hurt that Blanchard embraces the drama inherent to her real-life story. Less than a week out of prison, she’s sporting long nails and eyelashes worthy of Tammy Faye Bakker. Before her release, her Instagram account posted a fantasy-themed meme of a woman running with wolves alongside the caption: “Throw me to the wolves, and I’ll come back leading the pack.” She also shared a photo of a notebook cover emblazoned with the slogan: “Sorry I wasn’t listening I was thinking about Gypsy Rose Blanchard.”
Blanchard and her attorney say that her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, tricked doctors into believing her daughter was chronically ill and near death, a ruse that allowed the pair to receive donations, a trip to Disney World, and even a free house. All the while, Blanchard testified, Dee Dee abused her daughter, forcing her to go through unnecessary medical procedures, beating her and chaining her to a bed. Though Blanchard was in her late teens and early 20s at this time, Dee Dee lied about her age, attempting to convince doctors and neighbors that she was much younger.
The horrendous facts of the case may seem incongruous with the renewed enthusiasm for Blanchard, which veers into camp territory. One Detroit strip club offered her a job and says it’s going to host a “Get Tipsy with Gypsy” release party. (According to TMZ, she has yet to accept the gig.) During the countdown to her release, TikTokers posted tongue-in-cheek videos sharing which pop culture moments they would want to catch her up on. “I feel like she missed a lot,” Noah Miller said in a video. His “Gypsy Rose release party” would include teaching her about the rise of rapper Ice Spice, ChatGPT and shopping on the Temu app.
Blanchard told People she hopes that her newfound influence has a positive effect. “I feel like I have been blessed with that ability to possibly create change,” she said in an interview shortly before leaving prison. She identifies as a “public figure, public speaker, author, advocating awareness about Munchausen syndrome by proxy” in her social media bios. (Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a condition where a caretaker fakes symptoms to make it appear as if their ward is sick.)
Blanchard’s superfans also latched on to a report that she planned to attend the Kansas City Chiefs’ New Year’s Eve game in hopes of meeting her idol, Taylor Swift. Blanchard previously told TMZ that she used her prison commissary money to buy the singer’s albums. Instead, Blanchard left Missouri for Louisiana, the state where she was born and has family.
Blanchard is using her social media accounts to thank fans and promote her Lifetime docuseries, a six-hour saga of prison interviews that comes out on 5 January, as well as a new book out next week. And though she seems to enjoy her time in the spotlight, some might believe that all the attention exploits a vulnerable woman who already endured unimaginable abuse at the hands of her mother. “I wish her normalcy, peace and privacy,” one X user wrote. “She’s been through enough.”
In an interview with People, Blanchard’s husband Anderson reported feeling “very nervous” about the attention. Calling himself “a very private person”, he said his plans for his wife’s first days of freedom included making gumbo, exchanging presents and taking her on “a romantic night out”.
“Gypsy’s never been on a real date where you go and sit somewhere and eat and go to a movie,” he said, adding, “We’ve decided that every night, we’re going to lay in bed, we’re going to talk to each other and check on each other and see how we’re doing, because it is going to be crazy for a minute”.
Despite such domestic bliss, the drama continues online. After commenters glommed onto a rather innocuous selfie posted by Anderson, looking very much like the middle school teacher he is in a plaid button-up and glasses, Blanchard came to defend him from “the haters”.
“If you get likes and good comments great, if you get hate then whatever because THEY DON’T MATTER,” Blanchard wrote in the comments, adding: “Besides they jealous because you are rocking my world every night…yeah I said it, the D is fire [fire emoji] happy wife happy life [heart emoji].”
