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Gypsy Rose Blanchard — who was released on parole Thursday, Dec. 28, 2023 after serving seven years of her 10-year prison sentence for her part in her abusive mom’s murder — has a lot planned to celebrate her freedom.
Among her post-prison plans are being able to experience a real “first date,” a “spa day,” eating gumbo and opening Christmas presents, her husband, Ryan Anderson, told People. But Blanchard also experienced another first.
“First selfie of freedom!,” Blanchard posted on Instagram Friday, the day after her release, including a mirror snap of herself smiling with one hand on her hip.
Blanchard, now 32, pleaded guilty in 2016 to second-degree murder in the 2015 slaying of her mom, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She was let out of the Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri at 3:30 a.m. Thursday, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections told Oxygen.
Blanchard has maintained that she was forced into unnecessary and often painful medical procedures for years by Dee Dee, who managed to convince family members, doctors, and at times, her daughter, that Blanchard was sick with diseases and conditions she didn’t have, including leukemia and muscular dystrophy. It’s believed that Blanchard was a victim of Munchhausen syndrome by proxy, what’s now known as factitious disorder imposed on another, at the hands of her mother.
Blanchard was 23 when her mom was killed on June 9, 2015. She testified at the trial of Nicholas Godejohn, her boyfriend at the time of her mother’s murder, that she felt helpless against Dee Dee’s abuse and forced treatments and convinced Godejohn to fatally stab her mother while she slept in their home near Springfield, Missouri.
Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action for killing Dee Dee, and was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
While Blanchard was still behind bars, she married Louisiana teacher Ryan Anderson last year. Anderson, 37, who picked Blanchard up from prison Thursday morning, told People that the couple has a lot planned for the days after her release.
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What will Gypsy Rose Blanchard do after her prison release?
Anderson says Blanchard, who was let out of the correctional facility where she was incarcerated just three days after Christmas, had plans with her family — including her father Rod, stepmother Kristy and half-siblings — for a holiday gathering.
“Of course I have presents that I bought her and stuff,” Anderson told People, “so we’re going to have a nice little get together. Then, the day after, Gypsy has a spa day planned.” Anderson added that Blanchard’s post-prison plans also include celebratory gumbo. “I’m from Louisiana and Gypsy loves my gumbo, so I plan on making a big gumbo for everybody,” Anderson said. “That’s what she wants.”
After the family gatherings, Anderson is hoping for some alone time with Blanchard to take her on what he calls her “first date.”
What is Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s husband planning for her “first date”?
“That night is when I’m going to get her to myself and have a romantic night out and take her on her first date,” Anderson told People. “Gypsy’s never been on a real date where you go and sit somewhere and eat and go to a movie or do whatever.”
Anderson explained that the one time Blanchard did go out on a date with Godejohn, whom Blanchard met online before asking him to kill her mother, it was a chaperoned affair. “You’ve got to think, with her mom, the one time she met up with Nick, it was at a movie theater and she didn’t even get to sit with him,” Anderson said. “Her main thing is, ‘I’ve never been on a real date.’ So she’s going to get all gussied up and so am I, and I’m going to take her to a nice little candlelight place. That’s what I want to do.”
Despite the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, Blanchard says that she still loves her mom. “Nobody will ever hear me say I’m glad she’s dead or I’m proud of what I did,” she told People. “I regret it every single day.”
