Gypsy is home free, eight years after being sentenced to 10 years in prison for the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is ready to tell her story in her own words. In the final days of 2023, Gypsy, 32, was released from prison eight years after she pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Karen Pojmann, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections, told the Associated Press that Blanchard was granted parole after serving 85 percent of her original sentence.
Dee Dee's murder came after she is believed to have inflicted years of abuse on Gypsy due to Munchausen by proxy (MSP), a rare disorder in which a guardian exaggerates or induces illness in a child for attention and sympathy. In 2015, Gypsy asked her then-boyfriend, Nicholas "Nick" Godejohn, to kill her mother. Nick proceeded to commit the crime while Gypsy waited in the bathroom.
Gypsy has since reunited with her husband, Ryan Anderson, whom she wed in a 2022 prison ceremony, as well as her dad and stepmom.
Now that she's out of prison, Gypsy plans to tell her story in an upcoming Lifetime docuseries, The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, which will premiere Jan. 5.
Talking to ET's Rachel Smith, Gypsy shares that the biggest misconception people seem to have about her is believing she's still the little girl who was taken advantage of by her mother. "They don't realize there's been eight years since I was arrested and I've grown up and matured into a woman and I'm married and changed," she says. "I'm coming out as a woman and sharing my story as a grown up."
"I just want to share my story. I want to be a voice for the voiceless. I want to come out and just tell people this is who I am," she adds. "This is why I'm doing this. It's important to me [and] it's close to my heart, so I'm just tackling it. Yes, it is a lot right out of prison, but I'm doing it for a cause, doing it because it's for a purpose."
The six-part documentary will feature interviews with Gypsy conducted over 18 months while she was in prison. The interviews are expected to cover the events leading up to her mother's murder, her time in prison, and the unexpected turns her life has taken since her release on Dec. 28.
"My purpose for doing this documentary is really just to shed light on mental health awareness," Gypsy tells ET. "I want to share with others what I've been through because if somebody out there is watching this, they can see me and know that they're not alone. Because when I was living with my mother, I felt very alone. I always say that if I had someone to tell me, 'Hey, it's safe to talk to someone and tell them that you're struggling. Tell them that your home situation is bad. Tell them you're being abused,' I wouldn't have committed my crime. So that's why it's important for me to share my story."
While most wouldn't be able to see the silver lining in a prison sentence, Gyspy says her incarceration gave her time to mature.
"I always say that life is what you make it and so I took the complicated situation that I had no control over and I turned it into a positive," she reasons. "I worked for eight and a half years to take classes, get my GED, better myself as a person [and] grow from that. Make it not wasted or dead time."
She certainly didn't let the time go to waste. While in prison, Gypsy fell in love and tied the knot with Ryan, a 37-year-old special education teacher from her home state of Louisiana.
Gypsy confesses that over 250 men reached out to her "from all countries," wanting to date her while she was behind bars, but Ryan stood out.
"Well, Ryan's from Louisiana, and I'm originally from Louisiana. [When] I saw that, I'm kinda like, 'Hey, someone from my home state,' so I wrote him a letter back. We became friends and, of course, more than friends and then now we're married," she tells ET.
Rather than considering themselves newlyweds, Ryan explains that the couple calls themselves "newly-together-wed" since they've been married over a year now. "It's nice, it's what I've been waiting for," the teacher adds.
Now, the couple is basking in the nuance of everyday life together, which includes learning how they fit into each other's lives. "We're still learning each other but it's been great," Ryan enthuses as Gypsy notes that they've spent most of their time moving her wardrobe into his space.
"It was like integrating into our new life together and just settling into married life," she shares. "We cooked our first dinner together and, you know, it's fun. We're learning about each other. I've already told him to put the toilet seat down several times."
Although their families initially cautioned the couple to wait until Gypsy was released from prison to tie the knot, the pair says they have no regrets about their decision not to wait.
Ryan tells ET that the choice was "one of those [where] we knew what we wanted to do. She's never got to live her life before, so it's one of those where, you know, her parents were like, 'Let her live it.' And that's what they did."
As for Gypsy, she says that she was "tired" of being alone.
"I think that, spending eight and a half years in prison, all I was was all alone. And I was tired of sleeping in a bed by myself. I was tired of feeling like I had no one to share memories with," she adds. "I always knew that I wanted to share it with someone, I just didn't know who. And, now I know who."
The couple says that they're remaining focused on learning how they work as a married couple before they think about the future in terms of having children, but they have no reservations about someday expanding their family.
"We're just trying to start off the marriage on a good foot before we bring kids into this situation right now," Gypsy says.
"But never say never," Ryan adds.
The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard premieres Friday at 8 p.m. ET on Lifetime.
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