Where is Gypsy Rose Blanchard now? The true story behind Joey King's new series The Act

21 March 2019, 17:26

By Sam Prance

The Act viewers are transfixed by Hulu's adaptation of Gypsy Rose Blanchard's true story...

Hulu's new series The Act debuted yesterday (Mar 21) to critical acclaim.

The Act tells the disturbing true story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard (Joey King) and her mum Dee Dee (Patricia Arquette). Gypsy became the subject of national news attention in June 2015 when it was reported that she had been involved in the murder of Dee Dee, who had abused her and forced her to pretend to suffer from multiple severe diseases. The Act does an incredible job of telling Gypsy's story without sensationalising it.

Where is Gypsy Rose Blanchard now? How true is The Act on Hulu?

Gypsy Rose Blanchard is currently serving a 10 year prison sentence in Missouri's Chillicothe Correctional Center. Given the context of her child abuse and the crime itself, she was charged with second-degree murder not first-degree murder. Gypsy didn't actually kill Dee Dee herself. She began dating a man she met online named Nicholas Godejohn in 2012 and she later asked him to stab Dee Dee in her sleep so that they could elope.

The Act is, for the most part, loyal to Gypsy's real life story. It opens with Dee Dee and Gypsy moving into a new home built for them by Habitat for Humanity after losing their previous apartment in Louisiana to Hurricane Katrina. In changing states, Dee Dee was given free reign to fabricate Gypsy's illnesses as much as she wished and claim that she was much younger than she actually was. All of this happened in real life.

Dee Dee was believed to have suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy. It is a mental disorder, in which a parent or a caretaker "fabricates or induces illness in a person under their care". Dee Dee claimed that Gypsy had leukemia, muscular dystrophy, asthma and various other conditions. She also shaved Gypsy's head often and made her use a wheelchair to make her look ill. The Act portrays this truthfully.

Where The Act differs to real life is in its side characters. While Gypsy's neighbour Lacey (Anna Sophia Robb) is inspired by her actual neighbour, Aleah Woodmansee, most of the other people in the series are fictional. Lacey's mother, for example, Mel (Chloë Seivegny) does not exist. However, none of that takes away from the actual events that The Act covers and viewers so far are praising it.

Here are just a few of the reactions to the first episode.

The Act is eight episodes long. The next episode will air on Hulu on March 27th.

What do you think of The Act?