Who is Gypsy Rose Blanchard – and why is everyone talking about her?

Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a woman who conspired to kill her abusive mother in a case that gripped the US, was released early from prison this week.

The now 32-year-old pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of her mother Dee Dee Blanchard back in 2015, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The Missouri native plotted with her online boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, to kill her mother after she had forced her to pretend for years that she was suffering from leukemia, muscular dystrophy and other serious illnesses.

Godejohn fatally stabbed Dee Dee with a knife her daughter gave him, and the pair were later arrested hundreds of miles away in Wisconsin – where he lived. 

He was sentenced to life in prison without parole for her murder in 2019, following his trial conviction.

Following her arrest, it was revealed that Dee Dee had fabricated all of her daughter’s medical issues and that Gypsy was a victim of Munchausen by proxy syndrome — a rare form of abuse in which a guardian exaggerates or induces illness in a child for attention and sympathy.

Dee Dee had convinced everyone in their lives that she was a terminally ill teenager with the mind of a 7-year-old, who suffered from muscular dystrophy, leukemia and other ailments.

Gypsy was forced to use a wheelchair, feeding tube and an oxygen tank even though she could walk and had no health issues.

She reached a plea deal with prosecutors due to the abuse she had suffered, which meant a 10-year sentence in exchange for pleading guilty.

The case sparked huge media interest, and inspired a number of documentary series and TV shows – including HBO’s 2017 documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest, the 2019 Hulu miniseries The Act, and an upcoming Lifetime docuseries The Prison Confession of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.

Gypsy’s own memoir, Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom, which she wrote in prison, is also set for publication next month.

On Thursday, Gypsy Rose Blanchard walked out of Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri having served over seven years of her 10-year sentence.

Speaking to PEOPLE ahead of her release, the 32-year-old said: “No one will ever hear me say I’m proud of what I did or I’m glad that she’s dead. I’m not proud of what I did. I regret it every single day.”

“She didn’t deserve that,” she said of her mother’s killing. “She was a sick woman and unfortunately I wasn’t educated enough to see that. She deserved to be where I am, sitting in prison doing time for criminal behavior.”

Gypsy has since split from Godejohn, who is serving life in prison for Dee Dee’s murder, and is now married to Ryan Anderson, who she wed behind bars last year.

“We’re in love,” she said.

“When I’m at home with my family, with my husband’s arms around me and I’m surrounded by my loved ones, that is when I will be happy.”