Gypsy Rose Blanchard was released from prison on Dec. 28, 2023, after serving eight years of a 10-year sentence which was a result of her pleading guilty to second-degree murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard. The day that she was released, people on social media celebrated. Everyone was so happy that Blanchard had been released, and the hype still continues. She currently has 8.3 million followers on Instagram and 9.9 million followers on TikTok.
She continues to entertain her audience with classic millennial posts and promotion of “Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard,” the book and series. Along with the new additions, Gypsy Rose currently has one movie, “Gypsy’s Revenge,” one documentary, “Mommy Dead and Dearest” and one show, “The Act,” that also tells her story.
I totally get the true-crime obsession; I am a victim of it too — pun intended. I also find crime shows and storytellers interesting; however, I find that I enjoy them more when the criminal is dead. I think it makes me more comfortable watching them.
In Blanchard’s case, not only is she still kicking, but she is a free woman, and we are showering her with attention that is centered around her literal crime. I am not saying that I do not agree that, in some way, her mother deserved what she got. She definitely made her daughter’s life horrible by abusing her, and she should have been punished. However, I believe Blanchard and her boyfriend should not have taken that punishment into their own hands.
I am not here to judge Blanchard for what she did; I truly believe that the case could be made that it was self-defense. However, that was the case made for the jury, and they still concluded that she should spend a little while in the doghouse.
Now that Blanchard is out, I think that what she needs is something she never had the opportunity to have, a normal life. She deserves to be able to enjoy time with her husband and see the world that she has missed out on.
Instead, her life continues to be an abnormal rollercoaster. First, she had a mentally ill mother who treated her for diseases she did not have. To escape that, she literally committed murder. Like the super illegal type of murder. Like the premeditated, convinced her boyfriend to kill for her kind of murder. Then, she gets shuffled through court, into prison and then, the media starts telling her story.
Now that she is out of prison, the media blitz is stronger than ever. She has been interviewed and reported on by media outlets like Good Morning America and Nick Viall’s Podcast. Why are they interviewing a convicted murderer? Because the crime-obsessed, chronically online society that we have become is paying more attention to her than ever.
Millions of people are watching her and asking for pictures with her in public like she is their favorite celebrity. This is what I really want to talk about. How do we not see any qualms with supporting a woman who murdered her mother?
“People” magazine reported on Blanchard’s interview with Good Morning America, or GMA, and during that interview, she said that she never wanted to be famous. Maybe that was true in the beginning, but if you take a look at her social media, anyone can see that she is obviously addressing her followers as a celebrity would a fan base.
Ironically, Blanchard also told GMA that she always wanted to be someone who made a difference in the world. So far, the difference she has made is turning millions of people into murder sympathizers.
Understanding Blanchard’s reasoning is fine, but social media is way beyond that. She is no longer a young girl who killed her mom to get away from the abuse. She is a grown woman who was convicted of murder and is now being celebrated for it.
I think that this behavior of making Blanchard a celebrity should be met with the same level of contempt as the Jeffrey Dahmer series was. He did commit more vicious crimes than Blanchard, but he was long dead when the show was made about him.
Blanchard is alive and soaking up the rewards of committing murder. We should not be encouraging her to kill off anyone that is making her angry. Not only that, but we are saying to other people that if they are in similar situations that it is okay for them to take illegal and violent actions to resolve those circumstances. It is okay, and they may end up making money and being famous.
It is outrageous that the same society that found Blanchard guilty of second-degree murder is now putting her on a pedestal for the same crime.
Regardless of if you think she should have gone to prison or not, I think everyone should be worried about when Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s time in the spotlight ends. The trajectory of her life currently predicts that when that happens, she will do anything she can to get it back.
