Prison to folk hero: Gypsy Rose Blanchard embraces first days of ‘freedom’

Blanchard, a victim of Munchausen by proxy who spent eight years in prison, is seeing a redemption arc with followers thrilled to watch her next moves

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.