Get To Know Gypsy Rose Blanchard's Family

After learning about Gypsy Rose Blanchard's tragic childhood, it's only natural to believe that she doesn't have a great family life. Her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, forced her to fake illnesses, get serious medical treatment she never required, and mentally and physically abused her. After enduring the abuse for years, Gypsy believed she could only escape if she got rid of her mother, so she and her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, plotted and executed Dee Dee's murder.

However, that wasn't the only abuse young Gypsy had to endure at the hands of her family. In her documentary, "The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard," she shared that her grandfather, Claude Pitre, had molested her in her childhood. Pitre briefly appeared in the documentary to claim that Gypsy had inappropriately tried touching him when she was four, and he had stopped her.

Speaking to People, Gypsy shared that she had bravely told her mother about the sexual abuse. "I fully told her everything that happened, and she proceeded to let me know that he had done the same thing to her when she was a child as well," she shared. "I think it makes me wonder what else, what other kind of forms of abuse did she suffer that I don't know about?" Thankfully, Dee and Pitre are no longer a part of Gypsy's life. Instead, she finally got to live out her dream of a loving and supportive family when she was welcomed home by her dad, sister, and stepmom.

When Gypsy Rose Blanchard's father, Rod, was 17, his paths crossed with 24-year-old Dee Dee, per Buzzfeed News. After a few months of dating, Dee Dee got pregnant, and they had no choice but to tie the knot. But when Rod turned 18, he realized he had made a mistake marrying someone he didn't love, so he ended things, and a few months after the split, their daughter came into this world. 

According to the outlet, Dee Dee told her community that Rod was a no-good drug addict who wanted nothing to do with them. But Rod stayed in touch with them and fulfilled his financial child support duties. Though he tried to form a connection with Gypsy through phone calls and even offered to meet her, Dee Dee put a wedge between them. Gypsy told People in 2023 that her mother spoke badly about Rod and led her to believe he wasn't a good man, so she didn't open up to him about the abuse until she was in prison. 

Thankfully, it seems like the father-daughter closed the distance eventually, and in 2018, he told Fox News that they regularly spoke and he was proud of her for doing well in school at prison. In a 2017 People interview, he shared his thoughts about Gypsy's actions, saying, "Yeah, it's wrong, and there were other options that Gypsy had — which she tried some of those avenues and they didn't work out. Bad as it sounds, she [Gypsy's mom] asked for what she got." 

Shortly after Gypsy Rose Blanchard's birth, her father, Rod, began dating his now-wife Kristy. When Gypsy got to know Kristy, she understood what a good mother was like. In her "The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard," she called Kristy "[the] mom that I always wanted to have" and added that she didn't wish to know a life without her. Following Gypsy's release, Kristy had an interview with News Nation in which she shared that her stepdaughter told her about her grandfather, Claude Pitre's sexual abuse before she told her father. 

When the reporter asked her about Pitre's refutation, she called it "disgusting" and said that she believed Gypsy without a shadow of a doubt. Kristy also noted that she kept Gypsy's revelation a secret and let her tell Rod on her own terms. It's no wonder that Gypsy feels so comfortable with Kristy because she has supported her through it all. In the docuseries, Kristy recalled that after Gypsy went to prison, she visited her there and told her she was loved and supported. 

Kristy also advocated for her release by attending her parole hearing, "I told the parole board that look, I don't condone what Gypsy did, not at all. I understand why she did it," she said in the docuseries. In the Buzzfeed News interview, Kristy said that she took a good look at Dee Dee's autopsy because she wanted to make some sense of what led her to treat Gypsy so horribly.

Kristy and Rod Blanchard share two children, Mia and Dylan Blanchard. While Dylan mostly stays out of the spotlight, Mia has a strong social media presence and has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. Mia was born in 2001 and is getting a degree in nursing. Like her parents, she also supports Gypsy Rose Blanchard wholeheartedly. In "The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard," she said that it was only fair her stepsister went to prison for the crime, but the punishment should have been much shorter than her 10-year sentence.

Mia also felt saddened that her stepsister's life was so much more tragic than hers because it lacked the warmth and love she had received from her peers and parents. Although Gypsy now has a loving relationship with her husband, Ryan Anderson, Mia isn't entirely sure she made the right call by marrying him. She said that Gypsy had spent most of her life sheltered away and didn't fully grasp the true meaning of living together with a partner. 

But when Mia told Gypsy how she felt, she agreed to set up a meeting for her stepsister and husband to help clear her doubts. Overall, she felt proud of Gypsy's transformation, "Gypsy is always going to struggle with certain things, but she is growing into a beautiful woman that can own up to her stuff when she needs to," Mia said in the documentary. "I am very proud of her."