MY Life Now

THE FORMER INMATE AND VICTIM OF MUNCHAUSEN SYNDROME BY PROXY ENJOYS FREEDOM AND A NEW LOVE

- JANINE RUBENSTEIN

Fresh out of hair, makeup and wardrobe styling for her People photo shoot in New Orleans on May 21, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard confidently asks, “Where do you want me?” As the camera starts flashing, Gypsy-Rose’s stepmom, Kristy Blanchard, looks on with pride at a woman who appears to be every bit in control. It’s been just five months since Gypsy-Rose walked out of Missouri’s Chillicothe Correctional Center, where she’d spent eight years of a 10-year sentence for her role in the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard.

Widely believed to have been an abusive parent, Dee Dee, as Gypsy-Rose testified in court, forced her daughter to undergo numerous unnecessary medical procedures, making her perhaps the nation’s best-known victim of the psychological disorder Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Today, however, she’s a changed woman. “I’d describe the Gypsy-Rose who went into prison as someone who was very lost and confused,” says Blanchard, 32. “Now she’s a little bit more wise, has a little bit more experience under her belt and is still very hopeful for the future.”