It is not every day that a convicted felon is greeted outside of their prison by a crowd of people holding signs and balloons.
But on Dec. 28, 2023, when Gypsy Rose Blanchard was released from Missouri Chillicothe Correctional Center, just that occurred.
After serving seven years of her ten-year sentence, Blanchard, whose child abuse case remains one of the most prominently known cases in America, was finally free. A victim of Munchhausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSP) committed by her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, from 1991 to 2015, Blanchard had spent the majority of her life living in a lie. MSP, a psychological disorder, is characterized by the tendency of a caregiver to exhibit attention-seeking behavior, usually medical attention, through those they are caring for. MSP-diagnosed Dee Dee forced Blanchard to live her life in a wheelchair, pretending as though she was seriously ill when she was, in fact, completely healthy.
Dee Dee would often make Gypsy Rose endure useless medical procedures to fix the imaginary sickness that she had formulated for her daughter. In 2015, after Gypsy Rose had discovered that the life she had lived was merely a ruse, she stabbed her mother to death and was then sentenced to ten years in prison. It wasn’t until Dec. of 2023 when Gypsy Rose was released from incarceration that the now-32-year-old began to find herself in the limelight once again.
On the day of her prison release, hoards of fans and supporters showed up at the location where she was being held to congratulate her with signs, flowers, and cheers of approval. Almost immediately following, she was welcomed with open arms to the social media scene, where she began to share selfies of herself living her new life. Most notably, she shared her love for her now ex-husband Ryan Scott Anderson, whom she’d met via letters during her time and jail, commending him for being such a loyal and loving husband. Alongside him, she embarked on a press tour where she shared her story, something she could not do easily behind bars.
For Gypsy Rose, whose newfound fame had quickly propelled her to success, there was seemingly nowhere to go but upward.
The side effect of this fame, however, is even more immense pressure.
After spending the past eight years of her life in prison, and the former 24 being tortured under her mother’s care, for her own sake, the glamorization of her new life on social media does nothing but trivialize the unfathomable hardships she had earlier endured. Given virtually no choice as to where her life would head after being released from prison, her return to what was supposed to be a normal life was immediately shrouded in internet fame and obsessive attention from the media.
Any attempts made to gather awareness for her MSP, like when she announced that she would be using her platform to bring attention to the fictitious disorder that was imposed on her, was almost instantaneously turned into a sugar-coated marketing scheme used to make her the new face of social media’s lore for a few months. Going from one stressful reality to another, the odds of her being able to experience a well-adjusted, healthy life were stacked against her from the second she began to be created as a celebrity.
As her fame online has begun to die down recently, it has left many wondering just what life path Gypsy Rose will take in the future. Hopefully, after enduring a horrific reality of dishonestly, abuse, and manipulation, she realizes that she deserves to finally live a normal life.
