August 17, 2026 • 33 mins
For most of her life, Gypsy Rose Blanchard was in a wheelchair. She had a feeding tube, an oxygen tank, and a list of diagnoses long enough to fill a binder.
Then, in 2015, her mother was found stabbed to death in their home, and the world found out Gypsy could walk.
The story became a documentary, a TV series, a household name. Case closed.
But did she fake it all?
In this new series from PRETEND, host Javier Leiva investigates the online world that formed around the case, where no one is a reliable narrator.
This is part one of The Gypsy Rose Obsession. Listen to PRETEND wherever you get podcasts.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin, I actually have no idea where we're going with this,
but I don't either.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I was like, I wanted to hop on a call
with you because I'm like.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
What's this about?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
You really can't mistake that voice. Gypsy Rose Blanchard somehow
became the most beloved convicted murderer in America. Half of
the country loves her, the other half never forgave her.
Maybe you've watched the HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Gypsy was in aol chair. She had leukemia, and she
was having seizures and she had to be too fit.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
And then gradually that story fell apart.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Things are not always as they.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Or maybe you discovered her story from the Hulu series The.
Speaker 6 (01:13):
Act, or you could have binged her reality TV show
on Lifetime.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I don't want people to look at you like, this
is Gypsy Roll.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
She's famous.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
I don't killing her mother shouldn't be famous for something.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Like that, Exactly. I hate that the F word famous.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Chances are you just kept seeing her face pop up
on your for you page.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I went to prison for eight and a half years
because like my own mom, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Or maybe you've been living under a rock and don't
know who the heck I'm talking about, So here's the
short version. Gypsy Rose Blanchard spent twenty three years in
a wheelchair, hooked up to a feeding tooth breathing machine,
had her teeth yanked out, put under for surgeries as
she never needed. Told she had cancer, muscular dystrophe, epilepsy, leukemia,
(02:11):
you name it. Turns out that was the cure because
when police found her, she had walked out of the
house on her own, and all those health issues poof,
they were gone.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I've been incarcerated for eight and a half years. I
will be released on THRACA.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
In December of twenty twenty three, Gypsy Rose Blanchard walked
out of a Missouri prison after serving less than ten
years for the murder of her mother, and America lost
its mind. People were curious, like genuinely curious. Her TikTok
(02:48):
and social media accounts blew up millions of followers just
within days of her release. So yeah, America's sweetheart is
also a convicted murderer, and depending on who you ask,
she's either the most sympathetic person alive or the most
dangerous woman on the internet.
Speaker 7 (03:11):
You know, Gypsy Rose Blanchard right, Okay, it's all alive
a purpose at Sarah, the fact that her mom did
all that to her and made her get these surgeries,
and like all.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Of it it was just a defense.
Speaker 7 (03:25):
But it's all a lie.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
How long do you guys think it'll take for everyone
to turn on Gypsy Rose Blanchard because you guys love
it right now?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Like that's just like queen, Have you guys seen all
the backlash? You should have kept her locked up?
Speaker 8 (03:40):
No shit, y'all were the ones that tried to make
her famous for ending her mother's life.
Speaker 9 (03:47):
Someone else is going to do something horrible and their excuse.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Is going to be well, she got away with it.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Well, now look at all the money that she's making.
Speaker 7 (03:56):
Off of Van.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
The official story, the one that the media told us,
is that Gypsy Rose Blanchard is a survivor, a victim
of one of the most extreme cases of medical child
abuse this country has ever seen. Gypsy says that she
underwent approximately thirty different medical procedures forced upon her by
her mother, d D.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Blanchard. Pick a disease, any disease.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Chances are that d D told a doctor that Gypsy
had it rare diseases like chronic conditions, terminal diagnosis. By
the time Gypsy was eight years old, her mother had
checked nearly every box on that list, and the doctors
believed it, because why wouldn't they. She showed up with
a bald kid in a wheelchair who couldn't walk, couldn't eat,
(04:44):
could barely function without her mother right there. And I've
combed through Gypsy's medical records, which were posted publicly on
a true crime content creator's Patreon page. Her mother, d
D claimed that Gypsy had already been through four eye
surgeries to correct the cross the eye that kept coming back,
(05:04):
a feeding tube inserted directly into her stomach because d
D said the gyps couldn't swallow properly, a procedure to
remove her saliva glands in her neck because did said
that Gypsy drooled too much, And a surgery where surgeons
literally wrapped part of your stomach around your esophagus to
stop acid reflux. All of this on a little kid.
(05:28):
The medication list and these same records run over a page.
Anti seizure drug, so she's been on since she was
three months old, volume for pain delivered through her feeding tube, asthma,
and Haler's steroids, allergy medications, and then there's this one.
Someone documented in her allergy list that Gypsy had an
(05:48):
anaphylactic reaction to processed sugar. Anaphylactic reaction to process sugar
as in sugar, the thing that's in basically every food
on earth. A life threatening allergic reaction to sugar is
not a.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Real medical condition.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It doesn't exist, but somehow it made it into her
medical chart because d D said so and nobody questioned it.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And the teeth.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
By the time Gypsy was a teenager, her teeth had
rotted out and had to be removed. A young girl
wearing false teeth, writing around with a shaved head and
a wheelchair. That's the official story. But an entire community
online decided that that was a lie. They flipped the
whole narrative around. Suddenly it was Gypsy who was the manipulator,
(06:41):
Gypsy who fooled the doctors, Gypsy who used her voice,
her looks, her tears to con everyone around her, including
her mother. And let me tell you, this community is
not small. They're very loud. I've spent the last few
months trying to figure out which side was telling the truth,
(07:03):
and spoiler alert, it's a lot more complicated than either
side wants to admit. You are listening to the Gypsy
Rose obsession. I'm Javier Leva, and this is pretend stories
about real people pretending to be someone else. I was
(08:07):
completely oblivious to the outcry. Again, Gypsy Rose Blanchard to me,
I have always considered her a victim of Munchausen by proxy.
That poor girl. I can't even imagine what her childhood
was like. I mean, I didn't agree with her decision
to murder her mother, because no one deserves to be murdered,
but I can't imagine why she resorted to violence. I
(08:28):
just assumed that everyone felt that way about her.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
The boy was I wrong.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Hello, It's Andrew Dunlop and today on Nobody Should Believe Me,
we have a very special episode that is a full
circle moment for me my conversation with Gypsy Rose Blantern.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Andrea Dunlop released a two part interview with Gypsy on
her podcast, Nobody Should Believe Me. If you've never listened
to Nobody Should Believe Me, go check it out because
Andrea has seven powerful series bringing Munchausen victim stories to light.
Speaker 10 (08:59):
I remember a lot of people asking me, are you
going to interview her? Like why hasn't she been on
your show?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Honestly, I couldn't believe that it took seven seasons for
Andrea to interview Gypsy because Gypsy Rose Blanchard put Munchausen
by proxy on the map. I didn't even know Munchausen
by proxy was a thing until I heard about Gypsy's case.
Speaker 10 (09:20):
Gypsy's case has brought a lot of awareness. I think
that she is actually a very articulate representative of it
and is very thoughtful in the way that she sort
of explains it and explains her healing process in the
after effects.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
When people think about medical child abuse, they think of
Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
She's the poster child.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
This should not be on gypsy shoulder.
Speaker 10 (09:45):
She is a person.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
We should not put the onus on one person.
Speaker 10 (09:50):
To be a representative or an advocate for a.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
Form of abuse just because they've experienced it.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
You know, I was curious about Andrea's interview with Gypsy,
so I listened, and then I started reading the comments.
An old boy, I cannot believe the backlash.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Let me read some of these comments to you.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Are you kidding me. You call yourself an advocate, but
decide to bring a murderer on your podcast. I can't
sit by as we make martyrs out of murderers. As
a longtime listener, I'm extremely disappointed by the lack of
real research on gypsy Rose Blanchard. Andrea, all your credibility
has done shot out the window. You just ruined your
(10:32):
career by not doing your research. She lied about everything,
hundreds of comments just like this. This was my first
exposure to the anti gypsy community. So I started going
down that rabbit hole. What research were these people talking about?
What were Andrea and I'm missing from this conversation? And
before I knew it, I found myself in the deep end.
Speaker 9 (10:57):
Every single thing you've ever heard out of their mouths
about this is a lie. Okay, So for all these
years we've been told this story of just massive abuse.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
She didn't need any of the things.
Speaker 9 (11:06):
That were done nder her. She has no long lasting effects.
All of that correct, right, That's a lie. That's all
a lie.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Suddenly I started seeing some questionable things online and asking
myself the same questions. Inconsistencies in her stories home videos
that nobody was supposed to see a version of Gypsy
Rose Blanchard that looked nothing like the girl that I thought.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I knew. It wasn't enough for me to pump the bricks.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Did we all get the Gypsy story wrong? Was everything
I knew about this case a lie? So I had
to go straight to the source, Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Gypsy
and I exchanged a few emails, and within a few hours,
I'm not kidding, we were.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
On a call.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I was unprepared for this conversation and it took place
very early on in my research.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I have to be honest. I thought she was lovely.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
All I know about you is the HBO doc, right,
And so I was like, I had no idea that there.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Was this like other world, like you're living in it.
But I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
You know, it's it's insane. It's it's called the gyp verse.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Oh, like the verse, like the Marvel Yeah, like yes.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Like the Marvel verse. So it's it's it's two communities
and one is pro gypsy and one is anti Gypsy.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Which one which one's louder?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I mean, I would say that the anti Gypsy side
is probably the loudest, and I think that goes for
for any sort of hater community. So a lot of
times if someone posts a video in support or just
having a neutral opinion, you can't even have a neutral
(12:51):
opinion about me because you will get death threats.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
You're walking into the crosshairs.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yes, yes, you're walking into literally a war zone between
these two communities.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Without even knowing it, right, because like, if you're a
pro you're if you're in the pro gypsy verse, you're
you know, you're sympathetic to like the abuse that your
face and all that stuff, and like it would never
even cross your mind that there's this other universe that
will just pounce on you. Right, the Internet did what
(13:23):
the Internet does.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Her nose was too big.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
Gypsy Rose has been spotted for the first time since
her nose job, and it turns out she didn't just
get a nose job.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And her teeth, the same teeth that her mother had
yanked out when she was a kid, became content too.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
I'm going to Children's Marcy Housepital the Sea.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Mike didnist for my teeth.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
She can't even post pictures with her in a swimsuit
without getting comments.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
Gypsy Rose is up early around six thirty am this morning.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Posting herself in a two piece bikini.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Content creators mocked her voice.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Hey babe, did you at Gypsy Rose? Compression for me
d is.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, to kiss the frock, to meet the Prince. I'm
on high right now. You can't bring me down. Right
now he's eating a browny and later he won't be
eating me.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
In fact, people impersonating her became a trend on TikTok.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Can't bring me down.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I'm on high right now, look at my best, Like,
you can't take that from me.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I just I was wearing a wig and a lot
of my videos because last year and the year before that,
like I bleached my hair so much because I was
so excited to try new things with my hair that
I didn't, you know, realize that bleaching and bleaching and
bleaching was going to fry it as bad as it
(15:02):
was so unfortunately, you know, my hair was down to
a must of a butt when I got out of
prison and I had to shave it all off, and
you know, the anti side was like, well, wouldn't that
be a trigger for you? And the logical side of
me is of course wanting to defend myself and being like,
do you want to walk around with fried hair is
(15:24):
kind of a necessity. So I used a wig for
a couple of months, and I'm just starting to kind
of like be okay with this being my authentic self.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
For those of you listening on the podcast feed, Gypsy
is sporting a pixie cut.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
More mature, you know, yeah, old. I know you're not.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
Supposed to ask ony five.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Okay, you're not supposed to ask a woman that I
was curious.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
A lot has.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Changed since being released from prison two years ago. She's
been married, then she got divorced, and now she's a mother.
She has this whole new life and her only career
really is being Gypsy Rose. One of the main criticisms
against her is that she figured out a way to
monetize and profit off of her mother's murder. She has
(16:15):
a cameo account, a book deal, multiple TV shows. Gypsy
is everywhere, and if you ask the Internet, they will
tell you that Gypsy is rich. It's so much easier
to just hide and make it go away, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Do you ever think about that.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I've tried, and it's I've tried getting offline, deleting my
social media. When I first came out of prison, I
gained millions of followers on my TikTok and Instagram. Well,
in the process of me, you know, going through my
parole time, there was just so much harassment on my
(16:55):
parole officer that he said, you know, would probably be best
to you know, maybe get off of social media. So
I deleted my Instagram with like nine million followers. So
I made a new Instagram quickly gained a lot of
followers on that, approaching one million now. And I still
maintain my nine point three mil on TikTok, and I've
(17:18):
had a love hate relationship with this account. I've deactivated
and reactivated at this point, my followers just know it's
part of my behavior. But when at a time where
I was not on social media for.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Like a month, it turns out that the leading your
account doesn't really make you anonymous. When your face has
been on every screen in America, you.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Have a very distinctive voice.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah, I mean, do you ever get like spotted or
like how do you deal with that?
Speaker 8 (17:48):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah, I mean thankfully, nobody in person has ever came
up to me or my family and been mean in
any type of way. In fact, it's the opposite reaction
it's like, oh my god, healthy, like and what's crazy
is And I don't understand. I don't understand it. But
(18:09):
a lot of my fans are you know, ninety five
percent is women, five percent are male, And that's even
from analytics from my socials. But it's like teams, some
as even young as ten will stop me at the
mall or the grocery store, and I'm kind of like,
(18:30):
are you old enough to like what is your parents
donting you watch?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
But isn't that kind of weird though, like that you have,
like just the fact that you have fans, isn't that
kind of weird? What are they a fan of? I'm
just saying, like, you're not a performer, you know what
I mean, Like you're not.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Sully right exactly. And I thought, my I've thought that
to myself too. I mean it, I've always kind of
just been appreciative that they've been nice. But even I
don't really understand it, because yes, I can understand, you know,
watching my story and feeling you know, a passion, but
(19:10):
a fandom I don't get, and that maybe it's a
it's a social media thing. Oh my goodness, this girl
has you know, almost tem meon followers. I don't know.
I don't, I don't.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I think the answer is a lot simpler.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It's it's just this parasocial relationship, right, you don't know them,
but they know you and maybe they are sympathetic to
your story, and so it's like you're famous, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Like and so famous?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I guess because I never call myself famous. I don't
call myself a celebrity. I call myself like well known.
If I if I'm addressing it, I'll say I am
well known in the public eye, because that's the facts
of it. You know, you get the recognition, you get
media coverage, you have the following.
Speaker 10 (20:00):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
You know what I'm saying, You're well known in the
public and with that comes a lot of responsibilities and
burden too.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
After the break, anti Gypsy protesters take to the streets
of New Orleans and blast Gypsy and her child.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
That's after the break.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
The anti Gypsy side fortalized a hate campaign against me
and was raising money fundraisers go fund me to put
up billboard signs in my neighborhood in the city that
I live.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Here's a clip of an anti gypsy activist putting up
wanted style posters around town.
Speaker 8 (20:55):
Yeah, if you dislike schmurderers, send Tammy a gift.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
If you are here for.
Speaker 8 (21:01):
Some street justice, since the criminal justice system failed us,
send Tammy some gifts.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And even after I got off a parole, the day
that I got off a parole, I wanted to celebrate
with some friends of mine. So we were like, we're
gonna go to New Orleans. We're gonna have a drink,
We're gonna have a good time. So the anti side
was busy for two days straight putting up flyers at
all the bars a murderers in town, warning business good,
(21:30):
give a buck, gifty, give a fuck now wife job
buck you guys, because I had a great time in
New Orleans anyway. And then me and my friends are driving.
We come across a mobile bell ward and they have
a picture of me and my daughter and my partner
(21:52):
from when my daughter was born, and I flipped out.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We're in a mobile billboard pick up minors.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
My minor child, child, minor child. I hindsight, I should
not have even looked at it. I should have just
let it be. But instead I got out of car
and I went on live stream and I was flipping
the haters off and just reacting to it. I'm like,
(22:24):
this is my minor child, Like, my minor child should
not be up on a billboard, especially when I'm not
plastering her on social media. Gypsy roses baby space has
now been revealed, and I probably really shouldn't.
Speaker 8 (22:36):
Because it's a baby, but everybody's gonna see it anyway
because it's out there.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So here's the picture. Well, it feels like crossing the line, right,
Like it's one thing. It's one thing to have issues
with you and you've chosen to be public and whatever,
blah blah blah, but to like bring a kid, I
just feel like, yeah, now you're crossing a line. Gypsy
told me that she doesn't have a safe space, not
(23:03):
even her home.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Every single residence since I've been out of prison has
been docks on the internet. There's currently a video of
my house where somebody drove by my house and recorded
it and it's like this is where they live. I'm
an average person. I'll go to Walmart. I'll go to
the grocery store, get what I need, drive back home
and not think two things about it. Obviously, someone must
(23:26):
have followed me to know the street.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
That's so scary.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
These people are obsessed with her, and not in a
good way. Her critics say that Gypsy didn't serve enough time,
that she got away with murder, while the man who
actually did the stabbing, Nick go to John, is sitting
in a Missouri prison serving life without perole. His appeals
so far have been unsuccessful. Barring some kind of miracle,
(23:54):
Nick will die in prison and Gypsy is out there
living her life to a lot of people that math
does not add up. I have to say I'm fascinated
by Gypsy Rose Blanchard. She's one of the most complicated
people I've ever reported on, But I'm not interested in
doing another story about a fandom gone wrong.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Well.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Caught my attention was the evidence, the videos, text messages,
documents that have surface since the HBO documentary, things that
paint a very different picture of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Go back here water or.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
It is your sixties slaved demonent. I can steal, I
can torture, I could kill, just not those people.
Speaker 10 (24:45):
Gypsy Rose talking about how she plans to sa her
own daughter when she turns thirteen.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
If we have a girl the way it has to
be is if we have a girl, she has to
lose her virginity to you because you are the master
of the household.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Now, before you go spiral, let me give you some context.
These clips were recorded years ago, before Gypsy ever had
a daughter. What you're hearing is a role play game
that Gypsy and Nick Go Too John played online. In
this game, Gypsy played a character named Demona, a vampire slave,
and Nick played her master. And in that fictional world,
(25:28):
they said some very dark things, violent things, sexual things,
things that ripped out of context and posted on TikTok
sound like a confession. In context, they raise a whole
different set of questions about the dynamics between Gypsy and
Nick and who's really in control of that relationship. That's
the conversation we are going to have in detail, not
(25:50):
just in this episode. But one thing's for sure, I
can't do this series without Gypsy. She's talked about her
story plenty, but as far as I know, she has
never publicly addressed the Demona videos, the home videos, the
text messages, none of it, at least not in front
of a reporter until now. Once I start doing research,
(26:13):
because I haven't even started, Like once I dive into
the hellish waters of your haters, Like how comfortable are
you with uncomfortable questions and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
I'm pretty open.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Everybody has always known that I'm a pretty open book.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Remember you're listening to my pre interview with Gypsy. It's
just to get to know you session to see if
she was even interested. So if we were to do this,
because like you said, I think maybe the story is
that the people that know you, like in the Gypsy verse,
they know about this, and then obviously the haters know
about you as well, if not more, because they just
(26:52):
they won't let it go right, Like this has been
years and years and years, and it seems like every
time you make some sort of public opinion or video
or appearance, they jump on it. But like the outside
world has no idea. So like, I really do think
that that's the story. Your whole childhood was robbed from you,
and then now all of a sudden, you're an adult
(27:14):
and you have to figure out who is Gipsy Rose Blanchard?
Speaker 3 (27:18):
You know what I mean? And do you know who
you are? At this point?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I'm learning. I'm learning a lot, as with every new experience,
because I think that that's how we grow, is just
like experiencing things. So I think that I've gotten to
where I'm comfortable.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Like yeah, but I mean going back to like the
uncomfortable questions and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think that there's anything.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
That I that I could find that you haven't seen.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
Uh exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, that's some tough ones come at.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
That's what I figured. That's what I figured.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
But I was thinking, if you're up for it, I'm
willing to like travel down there for a weekend, maybe
like hang out for like a day, and and do
the interview in person.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Would you be game for that?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I'd be down for that.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Next time, I pretend I fly to Louisiana meet Gypsy
Rose Blanchard in person. I sat with her for almost
three hours, and she answered every single question I threw
at her.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
This is going to be a long one, guys.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I don't know how many episodes yet, but okay, ready,
because I conducted dozens of interviews, and we are also
going to cover a recent discovery about Gypsy's health that
puts everything in question. That's next time I pretend. Before
(28:42):
we go, I want to update you on some recent developments.
There's been a major development on this case. One of
Gypsy's critics filed the public records requests with the Missouri
Department of Corrections and got a hold of eight years
worth of prison calls, And I'm going to play one
of them for you right now. This is a prison
call strategizing on how to make the biggest splash with
(29:05):
her murder case.
Speaker 11 (29:08):
If I knew any other television appearances, that they're going
to throw the HBO documentary off the table. So so
you know, I gotta wait till that comes out first, then.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
The stuff right, definitely, yeah, and right now that they want.
Speaker 11 (29:27):
Yeah, And there's an article that had came out on
BuzzFeed dot com and it like tells my whole life
story from beginning, you know, so now and it reads
six million people.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 11 (29:45):
I was like, oh my gosh. I felt a lot
of people freaking me out when I said that. When
you said that I was famous, I didn't think but
I really was.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Because now I'm reconsidering that yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Well, I mean I don't want to say yeah, so
you're gonna be famous, I know.
Speaker 11 (30:11):
And then the lady that did the article says that
there's been movie people that approached her, and people are
like books and stuff, wanting to do my story so
I can get royalty from there. I can get money
from a book and a movie was actor. She's not
(30:32):
the documentary. So I'm like, whenever I get out, I'm
gonna be rich, I'm gonna be driving ever saving thing,
and I'm gonna have my own homes.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
They're slowly releasing one call at a time. It's a
daily trickle, and some of these calls are explosive. Most
of them are gossipy, but some of them give you
this unfiltered view into Gypsy's mind and how she talks
about the case when a reporter's not looking. Now, I've
written the Missouri Department of Corrections asking them about the
(31:05):
legalities of releasing such calls. After all, I've tried to
obtain prison calls in the past for the show, and
while these calls aren't meant to be private, they're not
generally available for public record unless they're part of a
court case. And these calls were recorded largely after Gypsy's
plea deal. So here's what I'm going to do. Because
(31:26):
these prison calls were released after my first three episodes
were finished. I will include relevant snippets of these calls
at the end of the first three episodes, and I
will weave some of these calls in throughout episode four
and beyond.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
But here's what I'm not going to do.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I'm not going to play anything embarrassing for the sake
of embarrassing Gypsy. Some of these calls include sexual content
that was not meant to be shared. And I know,
I know they knew that these calls were being recorded,
So how could they be so stupid? I don't get
it either, But as a journalist, I have to respect
(32:03):
the privacy of individuals on the other end of the call.
Some of what they're saying is personal, and these people.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Are not public figures.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
And I would caution any other content creator to do
the same. This story just got a whole lot trickier
to produce.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Let's roll the credits.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Hi, I'm Ali and a pretend Patreon supporter. Today's episode
was written and produced by Javier Leva. It was edited
by Pooneith Chanoi with the podcast Pundits, and theme music
by jo Basil with the Chicken dot Net.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
If you want to listen to the first three episodes
right now, check it out, I'm Patreon or pretend plus
on Apple Podcasts. You'll be able to listen to the
episodes early and ad free, and you'll get access to
bonus episodes with full length, lightly edited interviews. And you're
supporting local independent journalism. That's it for now. I want
(33:03):
to hear what you guys think in the comments, so
if you're on Spotify or YouTube, leave a comment at
fort ten pod is my handle.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
You want to know what you think.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
That's it for now.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Take care
Pushkin, I actually have no idea where we're going with this,
but I don't either.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I was like, I wanted to hop on a call
with you because I'm like.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
What's this about?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
You really can't mistake that voice. Gypsy Rose Blanchard somehow
became the most beloved convicted murderer in America. Half of
the country loves her, the other half never forgave her.
Maybe you've watched the HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Gypsy was in aol chair. She had leukemia, and she
was having seizures and she had to be too fit.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
And then gradually that story fell apart.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Things are not always as they.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Or maybe you discovered her story from the Hulu series The.
Speaker 6 (01:13):
Act, or you could have binged her reality TV show
on Lifetime.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I don't want people to look at you like, this
is Gypsy Roll.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
She's famous.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
I don't killing her mother shouldn't be famous for something.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Like that, Exactly. I hate that the F word famous.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Chances are you just kept seeing her face pop up
on your for you page.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I went to prison for eight and a half years
because like my own mom, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Or maybe you've been living under a rock and don't
know who the heck I'm talking about, So here's the
short version. Gypsy Rose Blanchard spent twenty three years in
a wheelchair, hooked up to a feeding tooth breathing machine,
had her teeth yanked out, put under for surgeries as
she never needed. Told she had cancer, muscular dystrophe, epilepsy, leukemia,
(02:11):
you name it. Turns out that was the cure because
when police found her, she had walked out of the
house on her own, and all those health issues poof,
they were gone.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I've been incarcerated for eight and a half years. I
will be released on THRACA.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
In December of twenty twenty three, Gypsy Rose Blanchard walked
out of a Missouri prison after serving less than ten
years for the murder of her mother, and America lost
its mind. People were curious, like genuinely curious. Her TikTok
(02:48):
and social media accounts blew up millions of followers just
within days of her release. So yeah, America's sweetheart is
also a convicted murderer, and depending on who you ask,
she's either the most sympathetic person alive or the most
dangerous woman on the internet.
Speaker 7 (03:11):
You know, Gypsy Rose Blanchard right, Okay, it's all alive
a purpose at Sarah, the fact that her mom did
all that to her and made her get these surgeries,
and like all.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Of it it was just a defense.
Speaker 7 (03:25):
But it's all a lie.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
How long do you guys think it'll take for everyone
to turn on Gypsy Rose Blanchard because you guys love
it right now?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Like that's just like queen, Have you guys seen all
the backlash? You should have kept her locked up?
Speaker 8 (03:40):
No shit, y'all were the ones that tried to make
her famous for ending her mother's life.
Speaker 9 (03:47):
Someone else is going to do something horrible and their excuse.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Is going to be well, she got away with it.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Well, now look at all the money that she's making.
Speaker 7 (03:56):
Off of Van.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
The official story, the one that the media told us,
is that Gypsy Rose Blanchard is a survivor, a victim
of one of the most extreme cases of medical child
abuse this country has ever seen. Gypsy says that she
underwent approximately thirty different medical procedures forced upon her by
her mother, d D.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Blanchard. Pick a disease, any disease.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Chances are that d D told a doctor that Gypsy
had it rare diseases like chronic conditions, terminal diagnosis. By
the time Gypsy was eight years old, her mother had
checked nearly every box on that list, and the doctors
believed it, because why wouldn't they. She showed up with
a bald kid in a wheelchair who couldn't walk, couldn't eat,
(04:44):
could barely function without her mother right there. And I've
combed through Gypsy's medical records, which were posted publicly on
a true crime content creator's Patreon page. Her mother, d
D claimed that Gypsy had already been through four eye
surgeries to correct the cross the eye that kept coming back,
(05:04):
a feeding tube inserted directly into her stomach because d
D said the gyps couldn't swallow properly, a procedure to
remove her saliva glands in her neck because did said
that Gypsy drooled too much, And a surgery where surgeons
literally wrapped part of your stomach around your esophagus to
stop acid reflux. All of this on a little kid.
(05:28):
The medication list and these same records run over a page.
Anti seizure drug, so she's been on since she was
three months old, volume for pain delivered through her feeding tube, asthma,
and Haler's steroids, allergy medications, and then there's this one.
Someone documented in her allergy list that Gypsy had an
(05:48):
anaphylactic reaction to processed sugar. Anaphylactic reaction to process sugar
as in sugar, the thing that's in basically every food
on earth. A life threatening allergic reaction to sugar is
not a.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Real medical condition.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It doesn't exist, but somehow it made it into her
medical chart because d D said so and nobody questioned it.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And the teeth.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
By the time Gypsy was a teenager, her teeth had
rotted out and had to be removed. A young girl
wearing false teeth, writing around with a shaved head and
a wheelchair. That's the official story. But an entire community
online decided that that was a lie. They flipped the
whole narrative around. Suddenly it was Gypsy who was the manipulator,
(06:41):
Gypsy who fooled the doctors, Gypsy who used her voice,
her looks, her tears to con everyone around her, including
her mother. And let me tell you, this community is
not small. They're very loud. I've spent the last few
months trying to figure out which side was telling the truth,
(07:03):
and spoiler alert, it's a lot more complicated than either
side wants to admit. You are listening to the Gypsy
Rose obsession. I'm Javier Leva, and this is pretend stories
about real people pretending to be someone else. I was
(08:07):
completely oblivious to the outcry. Again, Gypsy Rose Blanchard to me,
I have always considered her a victim of Munchausen by proxy.
That poor girl. I can't even imagine what her childhood
was like. I mean, I didn't agree with her decision
to murder her mother, because no one deserves to be murdered,
but I can't imagine why she resorted to violence. I
(08:28):
just assumed that everyone felt that way about her.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
The boy was I wrong.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Hello, It's Andrew Dunlop and today on Nobody Should Believe Me,
we have a very special episode that is a full
circle moment for me my conversation with Gypsy Rose Blantern.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Andrea Dunlop released a two part interview with Gypsy on
her podcast, Nobody Should Believe Me. If you've never listened
to Nobody Should Believe Me, go check it out because
Andrea has seven powerful series bringing Munchausen victim stories to light.
Speaker 10 (08:59):
I remember a lot of people asking me, are you
going to interview her? Like why hasn't she been on
your show?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Honestly, I couldn't believe that it took seven seasons for
Andrea to interview Gypsy because Gypsy Rose Blanchard put Munchausen
by proxy on the map. I didn't even know Munchausen
by proxy was a thing until I heard about Gypsy's case.
Speaker 10 (09:20):
Gypsy's case has brought a lot of awareness. I think
that she is actually a very articulate representative of it
and is very thoughtful in the way that she sort
of explains it and explains her healing process in the
after effects.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
When people think about medical child abuse, they think of
Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
She's the poster child.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
This should not be on gypsy shoulder.
Speaker 10 (09:45):
She is a person.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
We should not put the onus on one person.
Speaker 10 (09:50):
To be a representative or an advocate for a.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
Form of abuse just because they've experienced it.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
You know, I was curious about Andrea's interview with Gypsy,
so I listened, and then I started reading the comments.
An old boy, I cannot believe the backlash.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Let me read some of these comments to you.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Are you kidding me. You call yourself an advocate, but
decide to bring a murderer on your podcast. I can't
sit by as we make martyrs out of murderers. As
a longtime listener, I'm extremely disappointed by the lack of
real research on gypsy Rose Blanchard. Andrea, all your credibility
has done shot out the window. You just ruined your
(10:32):
career by not doing your research. She lied about everything,
hundreds of comments just like this. This was my first
exposure to the anti gypsy community. So I started going
down that rabbit hole. What research were these people talking about?
What were Andrea and I'm missing from this conversation? And
before I knew it, I found myself in the deep end.
Speaker 9 (10:57):
Every single thing you've ever heard out of their mouths
about this is a lie. Okay, So for all these
years we've been told this story of just massive abuse.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
She didn't need any of the things.
Speaker 9 (11:06):
That were done nder her. She has no long lasting effects.
All of that correct, right, That's a lie. That's all
a lie.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Suddenly I started seeing some questionable things online and asking
myself the same questions. Inconsistencies in her stories home videos
that nobody was supposed to see a version of Gypsy
Rose Blanchard that looked nothing like the girl that I thought.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I knew. It wasn't enough for me to pump the bricks.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Did we all get the Gypsy story wrong? Was everything
I knew about this case a lie? So I had
to go straight to the source, Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Gypsy
and I exchanged a few emails, and within a few hours,
I'm not kidding, we were.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
On a call.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I was unprepared for this conversation and it took place
very early on in my research.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I have to be honest. I thought she was lovely.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
All I know about you is the HBO doc, right,
And so I was like, I had no idea that there.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Was this like other world, like you're living in it.
But I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
You know, it's it's insane. It's it's called the gyp verse.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Oh, like the verse, like the Marvel Yeah, like yes.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Like the Marvel verse. So it's it's it's two communities
and one is pro gypsy and one is anti Gypsy.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Which one which one's louder?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I mean, I would say that the anti Gypsy side
is probably the loudest, and I think that goes for
for any sort of hater community. So a lot of
times if someone posts a video in support or just
having a neutral opinion, you can't even have a neutral
(12:51):
opinion about me because you will get death threats.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
You're walking into the crosshairs.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yes, yes, you're walking into literally a war zone between
these two communities.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Without even knowing it, right, because like, if you're a
pro you're if you're in the pro gypsy verse, you're
you know, you're sympathetic to like the abuse that your
face and all that stuff, and like it would never
even cross your mind that there's this other universe that
will just pounce on you. Right, the Internet did what
(13:23):
the Internet does.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Her nose was too big.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
Gypsy Rose has been spotted for the first time since
her nose job, and it turns out she didn't just
get a nose job.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And her teeth, the same teeth that her mother had
yanked out when she was a kid, became content too.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
I'm going to Children's Marcy Housepital the Sea.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Mike didnist for my teeth.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
She can't even post pictures with her in a swimsuit
without getting comments.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
Gypsy Rose is up early around six thirty am this morning.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Posting herself in a two piece bikini.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Content creators mocked her voice.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Hey babe, did you at Gypsy Rose? Compression for me
d is.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, to kiss the frock, to meet the Prince. I'm
on high right now. You can't bring me down. Right
now he's eating a browny and later he won't be
eating me.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
In fact, people impersonating her became a trend on TikTok.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Can't bring me down.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I'm on high right now, look at my best, Like,
you can't take that from me.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I just I was wearing a wig and a lot
of my videos because last year and the year before that,
like I bleached my hair so much because I was
so excited to try new things with my hair that
I didn't, you know, realize that bleaching and bleaching and
bleaching was going to fry it as bad as it
(15:02):
was so unfortunately, you know, my hair was down to
a must of a butt when I got out of
prison and I had to shave it all off, and
you know, the anti side was like, well, wouldn't that
be a trigger for you? And the logical side of
me is of course wanting to defend myself and being like,
do you want to walk around with fried hair is
(15:24):
kind of a necessity. So I used a wig for
a couple of months, and I'm just starting to kind
of like be okay with this being my authentic self.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
For those of you listening on the podcast feed, Gypsy
is sporting a pixie cut.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
More mature, you know, yeah, old. I know you're not.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
Supposed to ask ony five.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Okay, you're not supposed to ask a woman that I
was curious.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
A lot has.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Changed since being released from prison two years ago. She's
been married, then she got divorced, and now she's a mother.
She has this whole new life and her only career
really is being Gypsy Rose. One of the main criticisms
against her is that she figured out a way to
monetize and profit off of her mother's murder. She has
(16:15):
a cameo account, a book deal, multiple TV shows. Gypsy
is everywhere, and if you ask the Internet, they will
tell you that Gypsy is rich. It's so much easier
to just hide and make it go away, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Do you ever think about that.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I've tried, and it's I've tried getting offline, deleting my
social media. When I first came out of prison, I
gained millions of followers on my TikTok and Instagram. Well,
in the process of me, you know, going through my
parole time, there was just so much harassment on my
(16:55):
parole officer that he said, you know, would probably be best
to you know, maybe get off of social media. So
I deleted my Instagram with like nine million followers. So
I made a new Instagram quickly gained a lot of
followers on that, approaching one million now. And I still
maintain my nine point three mil on TikTok, and I've
(17:18):
had a love hate relationship with this account. I've deactivated
and reactivated at this point, my followers just know it's
part of my behavior. But when at a time where
I was not on social media for.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Like a month, it turns out that the leading your
account doesn't really make you anonymous. When your face has
been on every screen in America, you.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Have a very distinctive voice.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah, I mean, do you ever get like spotted or
like how do you deal with that?
Speaker 8 (17:48):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah, I mean thankfully, nobody in person has ever came
up to me or my family and been mean in
any type of way. In fact, it's the opposite reaction
it's like, oh my god, healthy, like and what's crazy
is And I don't understand. I don't understand it. But
(18:09):
a lot of my fans are you know, ninety five
percent is women, five percent are male, And that's even
from analytics from my socials. But it's like teams, some
as even young as ten will stop me at the
mall or the grocery store, and I'm kind of like,
(18:30):
are you old enough to like what is your parents
donting you watch?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
But isn't that kind of weird though, like that you have,
like just the fact that you have fans, isn't that
kind of weird? What are they a fan of? I'm
just saying, like, you're not a performer, you know what
I mean, Like you're not.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Sully right exactly. And I thought, my I've thought that
to myself too. I mean it, I've always kind of
just been appreciative that they've been nice. But even I
don't really understand it, because yes, I can understand, you know,
watching my story and feeling you know, a passion, but
(19:10):
a fandom I don't get, and that maybe it's a
it's a social media thing. Oh my goodness, this girl
has you know, almost tem meon followers. I don't know.
I don't, I don't.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I think the answer is a lot simpler.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It's it's just this parasocial relationship, right, you don't know them,
but they know you and maybe they are sympathetic to
your story, and so it's like you're famous, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Like and so famous?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I guess because I never call myself famous. I don't
call myself a celebrity. I call myself like well known.
If I if I'm addressing it, I'll say I am
well known in the public eye, because that's the facts
of it. You know, you get the recognition, you get
media coverage, you have the following.
Speaker 10 (20:00):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
You know what I'm saying, You're well known in the
public and with that comes a lot of responsibilities and
burden too.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
After the break, anti Gypsy protesters take to the streets
of New Orleans and blast Gypsy and her child.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
That's after the break.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
The anti Gypsy side fortalized a hate campaign against me
and was raising money fundraisers go fund me to put
up billboard signs in my neighborhood in the city that
I live.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Here's a clip of an anti gypsy activist putting up
wanted style posters around town.
Speaker 8 (20:55):
Yeah, if you dislike schmurderers, send Tammy a gift.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
If you are here for.
Speaker 8 (21:01):
Some street justice, since the criminal justice system failed us,
send Tammy some gifts.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And even after I got off a parole, the day
that I got off a parole, I wanted to celebrate
with some friends of mine. So we were like, we're
gonna go to New Orleans. We're gonna have a drink,
We're gonna have a good time. So the anti side
was busy for two days straight putting up flyers at
all the bars a murderers in town, warning business good,
(21:30):
give a buck, gifty, give a fuck now wife job
buck you guys, because I had a great time in
New Orleans anyway. And then me and my friends are driving.
We come across a mobile bell ward and they have
a picture of me and my daughter and my partner
(21:52):
from when my daughter was born, and I flipped out.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We're in a mobile billboard pick up minors.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
My minor child, child, minor child. I hindsight, I should
not have even looked at it. I should have just
let it be. But instead I got out of car
and I went on live stream and I was flipping
the haters off and just reacting to it. I'm like,
(22:24):
this is my minor child, Like, my minor child should
not be up on a billboard, especially when I'm not
plastering her on social media. Gypsy roses baby space has
now been revealed, and I probably really shouldn't.
Speaker 8 (22:36):
Because it's a baby, but everybody's gonna see it anyway
because it's out there.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So here's the picture. Well, it feels like crossing the line, right,
Like it's one thing. It's one thing to have issues
with you and you've chosen to be public and whatever,
blah blah blah, but to like bring a kid, I
just feel like, yeah, now you're crossing a line. Gypsy
told me that she doesn't have a safe space, not
(23:03):
even her home.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Every single residence since I've been out of prison has
been docks on the internet. There's currently a video of
my house where somebody drove by my house and recorded
it and it's like this is where they live. I'm
an average person. I'll go to Walmart. I'll go to
the grocery store, get what I need, drive back home
and not think two things about it. Obviously, someone must
(23:26):
have followed me to know the street.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
That's so scary.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
These people are obsessed with her, and not in a
good way. Her critics say that Gypsy didn't serve enough time,
that she got away with murder, while the man who
actually did the stabbing, Nick go to John, is sitting
in a Missouri prison serving life without perole. His appeals
so far have been unsuccessful. Barring some kind of miracle,
(23:54):
Nick will die in prison and Gypsy is out there
living her life to a lot of people that math
does not add up. I have to say I'm fascinated
by Gypsy Rose Blanchard. She's one of the most complicated
people I've ever reported on, But I'm not interested in
doing another story about a fandom gone wrong.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Well.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Caught my attention was the evidence, the videos, text messages,
documents that have surface since the HBO documentary, things that
paint a very different picture of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Go back here water or.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
It is your sixties slaved demonent. I can steal, I
can torture, I could kill, just not those people.
Speaker 10 (24:45):
Gypsy Rose talking about how she plans to sa her
own daughter when she turns thirteen.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
If we have a girl the way it has to
be is if we have a girl, she has to
lose her virginity to you because you are the master
of the household.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Now, before you go spiral, let me give you some context.
These clips were recorded years ago, before Gypsy ever had
a daughter. What you're hearing is a role play game
that Gypsy and Nick Go Too John played online. In
this game, Gypsy played a character named Demona, a vampire slave,
and Nick played her master. And in that fictional world,
(25:28):
they said some very dark things, violent things, sexual things,
things that ripped out of context and posted on TikTok
sound like a confession. In context, they raise a whole
different set of questions about the dynamics between Gypsy and
Nick and who's really in control of that relationship. That's
the conversation we are going to have in detail, not
(25:50):
just in this episode. But one thing's for sure, I
can't do this series without Gypsy. She's talked about her
story plenty, but as far as I know, she has
never publicly addressed the Demona videos, the home videos, the
text messages, none of it, at least not in front
of a reporter until now. Once I start doing research,
(26:13):
because I haven't even started, Like once I dive into
the hellish waters of your haters, Like how comfortable are
you with uncomfortable questions and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
I'm pretty open.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Everybody has always known that I'm a pretty open book.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Remember you're listening to my pre interview with Gypsy. It's
just to get to know you session to see if
she was even interested. So if we were to do this,
because like you said, I think maybe the story is
that the people that know you, like in the Gypsy verse,
they know about this, and then obviously the haters know
about you as well, if not more, because they just
(26:52):
they won't let it go right, Like this has been
years and years and years, and it seems like every
time you make some sort of public opinion or video
or appearance, they jump on it. But like the outside
world has no idea. So like, I really do think
that that's the story. Your whole childhood was robbed from you,
and then now all of a sudden, you're an adult
(27:14):
and you have to figure out who is Gipsy Rose Blanchard?
Speaker 3 (27:18):
You know what I mean? And do you know who
you are? At this point?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I'm learning. I'm learning a lot, as with every new experience,
because I think that that's how we grow, is just
like experiencing things. So I think that I've gotten to
where I'm comfortable.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Like yeah, but I mean going back to like the
uncomfortable questions and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think that there's anything.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
That I that I could find that you haven't seen.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
Uh exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, that's some tough ones come at.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
That's what I figured. That's what I figured.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
But I was thinking, if you're up for it, I'm
willing to like travel down there for a weekend, maybe
like hang out for like a day, and and do
the interview in person.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Would you be game for that?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I'd be down for that.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Next time, I pretend I fly to Louisiana meet Gypsy
Rose Blanchard in person. I sat with her for almost
three hours, and she answered every single question I threw
at her.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
This is going to be a long one, guys.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I don't know how many episodes yet, but okay, ready,
because I conducted dozens of interviews, and we are also
going to cover a recent discovery about Gypsy's health that
puts everything in question. That's next time I pretend. Before
(28:42):
we go, I want to update you on some recent developments.
There's been a major development on this case. One of
Gypsy's critics filed the public records requests with the Missouri
Department of Corrections and got a hold of eight years
worth of prison calls, And I'm going to play one
of them for you right now. This is a prison
call strategizing on how to make the biggest splash with
(29:05):
her murder case.
Speaker 11 (29:08):
If I knew any other television appearances, that they're going
to throw the HBO documentary off the table. So so
you know, I gotta wait till that comes out first, then.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
The stuff right, definitely, yeah, and right now that they want.
Speaker 11 (29:27):
Yeah, And there's an article that had came out on
BuzzFeed dot com and it like tells my whole life
story from beginning, you know, so now and it reads
six million people.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 11 (29:45):
I was like, oh my gosh. I felt a lot
of people freaking me out when I said that. When
you said that I was famous, I didn't think but
I really was.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Because now I'm reconsidering that yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Well, I mean I don't want to say yeah, so
you're gonna be famous, I know.
Speaker 11 (30:11):
And then the lady that did the article says that
there's been movie people that approached her, and people are
like books and stuff, wanting to do my story so
I can get royalty from there. I can get money
from a book and a movie was actor. She's not
(30:32):
the documentary. So I'm like, whenever I get out, I'm
gonna be rich, I'm gonna be driving ever saving thing,
and I'm gonna have my own homes.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
They're slowly releasing one call at a time. It's a
daily trickle, and some of these calls are explosive. Most
of them are gossipy, but some of them give you
this unfiltered view into Gypsy's mind and how she talks
about the case when a reporter's not looking. Now, I've
written the Missouri Department of Corrections asking them about the
(31:05):
legalities of releasing such calls. After all, I've tried to
obtain prison calls in the past for the show, and
while these calls aren't meant to be private, they're not
generally available for public record unless they're part of a
court case. And these calls were recorded largely after Gypsy's
plea deal. So here's what I'm going to do. Because
(31:26):
these prison calls were released after my first three episodes
were finished. I will include relevant snippets of these calls
at the end of the first three episodes, and I
will weave some of these calls in throughout episode four
and beyond.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
But here's what I'm not going to do.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I'm not going to play anything embarrassing for the sake
of embarrassing Gypsy. Some of these calls include sexual content
that was not meant to be shared. And I know,
I know they knew that these calls were being recorded,
So how could they be so stupid? I don't get
it either, But as a journalist, I have to respect
(32:03):
the privacy of individuals on the other end of the call.
Some of what they're saying is personal, and these people.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Are not public figures.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
And I would caution any other content creator to do
the same. This story just got a whole lot trickier
to produce.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Let's roll the credits.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Hi, I'm Ali and a pretend Patreon supporter. Today's episode
was written and produced by Javier Leva. It was edited
by Pooneith Chanoi with the podcast Pundits, and theme music
by jo Basil with the Chicken dot Net.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
If you want to listen to the first three episodes
right now, check it out, I'm Patreon or pretend plus
on Apple Podcasts. You'll be able to listen to the
episodes early and ad free, and you'll get access to
bonus episodes with full length, lightly edited interviews. And you're
supporting local independent journalism. That's it for now. I want
(33:03):
to hear what you guys think in the comments, so
if you're on Spotify or YouTube, leave a comment at
fort ten pod is my handle.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
You want to know what you think.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
That's it for now.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Take care
Host
Jake Halpern
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