An online petition has been launched to get Taylor Swift to meet super fan Gypsy Rose Blanchard after she is freed from prison next week.
After nearly 10 years in p*rison, Gypsy Rose Blanchard has some big plans for her first public outing as a free woman.
Ahead of her Dec. 28 release, Blanchard revealed to TMZ that she and husband Ryan Scott Anderson have bought tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs’ Dec. 31 game, where she hopes to make her “wildest dreams” come true and meet Taylor Swift.
A football fan, Blanchard is also hoping to meet Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce. If all else fails, she’s planning to make it to Swift’s The Eras Tour stop in New Orleans in October 2024.
Blanchard told TMZ that Swift is a “kick-ass chick” who empowers her, using the commissary money her father sends her to by the Grammy winner’s albums. She credited the 2012 song “Eyes Open” with helping her process the trauma from her mother Dee Dee Blanchard’s ab*use.
In September, the Missouri Department of Corrections confirmed that Gypsy has been granted parole and will be released on Dec. 28 after pleading g*uilty to second-degree mu*rder in 2016 over her mother’s d*eath.
Story of gypsy
In 1991, Dee Dee married Rod Blanchard, and they had a daughter in July 1991 whom they named Gypsy Rose Blanchard. But, unfortunately, Dee Dee’s web of lies began right from Gypsy’s birth. Shortly after the birth of Gypsy, Rod and Dee Dee split up, and Dee Dee took Gypsy away to live with her own family.
When Gypsy was just three months old, Dee Dee started claiming that her daughter suffered from sleep apnea. However, after taking her to the hospital for several overnight sleep studies and conducting several tests, the doctors found no evidence of the condition.
Sleep apnea was just the start of a long list of illnesses that Dee Dee claimed her child suffered from regularly. Soon after, Dee Dee became convinced that Gypsy suffered from many health conditions because she was born prematurely with a chromosomal disorder.
At one point, Dee Dee announced that Gypsy had muscular dystrophy and would need a walker. When Gypsy was around 7 or 8, she rode with her grandfather on his motorcycle when they got into a minor accident. Gypsy only had a slight abrasion on her knee, but her mother made her use a wheelchair, becoming her life companion.
Since she was a child, Gypsy had to go through many invasive and painful procedures for illnesses that she didn’t even have. Her mother claimed that Gypsy had leukemia and epilepsy. According to her, Gypsy couldn’t eat normally, so she had to have a feeding tube installed in her stomach.
When Gypsy was 10, but Dee Dee led everyone to believe she was only 8, she attended various events like the Special Olympics.
Gypsy went on to supposedly develop various visual and hearing problems as well.
She underwent surgery to remove her salivary glands. She also had to rely on a breathing tube to sleep. Due to the many medications, her teeth also started to rot and were replaced with bridges.
Moving to Slidell and Hurricane Katrina
While Dee Dee Blanchard was still living with her parents, they started to confront her about the treatment of Gypsy. Dee Dee also ran into some trouble with the law as she wrote some bad checks. Therefore, she took Gypsy and moved to Slidell.
In Slidell, Dee Dee and Gypsy lived in public housing. Rod would send over child support payments, and Dee Dee also benefitted from public assistance due to her daughter’s claimed illnesses. The mother and daughter continued visiting various specialists for different diseases, although they rarely came back positive.
She also started reporting that her daughter was having seizures, so doctors prescribed her anti-seizure medications. Then, in August 2005, hurricane Katrina destroyed Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose’s apartment, and they relocated to Missouri on a doctor’s suggestion.
Dee Dee claimed that all of Gypsy’s records got lost due to the hurricane, and as a result, she was able to lie about her daughter’s condition easily.
Moving to Missouri
In Missouri, Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose at first stayed in a rented home. However, later on, Habitat for Humanity built a new home with a wheelchair ramp and jacuzzi for Gypsy’s weak muscles. Dee Dee and Gypsy’s story attracted a lot of attention in local news.
Gypsy was honored as the Child of the Year in 2007 by the Oley Foundation. The duo stayed at Ronald McDonald Houses, availed free flights to visit hospitals, went on free trips to Walt Disney World, attended concerts, and much more. They enjoyed a lot of moral and financial support from the local community as well.
Dee Dee’s control and child ab-use
Gypsy had stopped attending school after second grade. Instead, her mother would homeschool her, claiming Gypsy couldn’t keep up with the other kids since she suffered from various mental disabilities and had the mind of a seven-year-old.
In reality, this was just another ploy to control Gypsy’s life and restrict her from revealing the truth or even realizing it herself. Before Gypsy’s father got remarried and for some time after that too, he would often visit Gypsy and spend time with his daughter.
However, he barely got any time alone with her. Dee Dee would always be present and watching them. While Rod did find the behavior odd at the time, he didn’t think much of it, and he was always impressed by how devoted Dee Dee was to Gypsy and complimented her on her caring skills.
After some time, it became hard for Rod to meet his daughter at all. Every time they planned to visit, Dee Dee would change plans at the last minute. In their neighborhood, Dee Dee would tell everyone that Gypsy’s father was a drug addict, alcoholic and never sent them any money.
She continued fooling everyone by spreading lies about Gypsy’s health condition and actual age. In addition, she forged birth certificates to keep Gypsy young. This lie was also further made easy by Gypsy’s appearance. She had a tiny stature at the height of barely five feet.
She would always be wearing large owlish glasses and smiling her toothless smile. Dee Dee also always kept Gypsy bald by shaving her head to give her the appearance of a chemotherapy patient. She claimed the hair would fall out anyway, and so Gypsy had no choice but to go with it.
As a result, Gypsy would often go around wearing bright wigs and or caps. Dee Dee also controlled Gypsy’s interaction with others. She always held her hands in public, and if Gypsy ever said something wrong, Dee Dee would give her a tight squeeze.
Gypsy even reported that Dee Dee would physically ab*use her at home by hitting her with coat hangers, tying her up to her bed, and denying her food.
Gypsy’s growing independence putting a stop to her mother’s ab*use
From a young age, Gypsy Rose was interested in science fiction and fantasy conventions. Accordingly, she would frequently attend these conventions, often in costume, where she could easily blend in with others.
In 2011, Gypsy tried to escape from Dee Dee with a man she met online. Eventually, the attempt failed, and Dee Dee Blanchard brought her daughter home, smashed her computer, and threatened to do the same to her fingers if she tried it again.
Nevertheless, Gypsy continued using the internet, and in 2012, she met Nicholas Godejohn online. The pair talked and flirted online, and Gypsy even spoke about it to her neighbor, who dismissed it as a young girl’s fantasies.
Fatal attraction
In 2014, they arranged to meet up in person at a movie theater and introduce Nicholas to Dee Dee. When the online friends met for the first time, they indulged in se*xual activities in the theater’s bathroom. Soon after, they began plotting Dee Dee’s m*urder.
In June 2015, Nicholas came back to Springfield and entered the Blanchard’s house while Dee Dee and Gypsy were away. When they returned home, and Dee Dee had gone to sleep, Gypsy gave Nicholas a knife to mu*rder her mother.
Then, while Gypsy hid in her bathroom, ears covered, Nicholas stabbed Dee Dee 17 times while she slept. The two then had sex, pocketed $4,000 lying in the house, and fled to a nearby motel.
After a few days, the Blanchard’s neighbors grew concerned upon seeing a suspicious Facebook post and, after checking that Dee Dee’s car and Gypsy’s wheelchair were at home, called the cops. But, unfortunately, when the police came, they found Dee Dee’s dead body.
After some investigation and tracing the IP address of the post made on Facebook, they traced it back to Gypsy and Nicholas in Wisconsin. The police raided Nicholas’ home and arrested them both. The trial was quite tricky as well as the investigations revealed one twist after the other.
Due to the strange circumstances, Gypsy was charged with a second-degree mu*rder charge and sentenced to 10 years in pr*ison after accepting a plea bargain. Nicholas was charged with first-degree mu*rder and sentenced to life in pr*ison. As of today, both of them are serving those sentences.
