The case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard has made headlines since she was imprisoned in 2016 for her part in the murder of her abusive mother.
A second season of Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up, documenting her life since her December 2023 release, is now available to view on TVNZ+ in New Zealand.
Here, Blanchard tells the Herald how she’s adjusting to new motherhood and reveals her hopes for the future.
Release from prison, paparazzi chases, divorce, and a surprise pregnancy - it’s an understatement when Gypsy Rose Blanchard says “a lot has happened” in the past couple of years.
The biggest change has undoubtedly been welcoming her first child, a daughter named Aurora, with boyfriend Ken Urker on December 28, 2024 - exactly one year after her release.
“The birth went wonderful,” she tells the Herald.
“I was very nervous. I was scared because this is my first child. So I had an epidural and I didn’t feel a thing – and whenever I was still loopy, I was like, ‘Well, goodness, if it’s like this, I can have 10!’”
Then, she says, postpartum anxiety set in.
“The first few days were an adjustment because of postpartum hormones. I was warned by my family and friends, like, they’re rough – but until you actually experience it, you don’t realise how rough it is," Blanchard reveals.
“So those first few days, I felt myself crying all the time. It wasn’t quite depression, but it was like a little bit of anxiety, and just a sense of [an] overwhelming feeling.”
Now the early days are behind her, Blanchard, 33, describes motherhood as “wonderful”.
“She is just a little over four months now, and we’re seeing her make new milestones. She hasn’t quite started rolling over yet, but she’s started scooting around, taking one toy from her hand into another and playing with toys.”
She and Urker have “settled into a rhythm” when it comes to parenting.
“Ken is very hands-on, and so that’s wonderful to see, because not a lot of dads will change the poopy diapers and really get in there,” she jokes.
“So it’s good to see how we’re able to kind of trade off and we’re able to lean on each other during parenting.”
Blanchard and Urker, who dated during her incarceration, reunited in April 2024 - the same month she announced her divorce from husband Ryan Anderson - and unexpectedly fell pregnant. Aurora was born just days after the divorce was finalised, signalling a new era for the Life After Lock Up star.
Blanchard is no stranger to life in the public eye - but now she’s a mother, a protective instinct has kicked in.
“Now that we have Aurora, we’re kind of like doing extra little things. For example, I made a choice that I didn’t want to show her face on social media,” she explains.
“When I was pregnant, I was like, ‘I don’t want her in front of a camera at all’. I was like, no pictures of her on the internet at all, I don’t want her to grow up in the film industry, anything like that.
“When we had her, Ken wanted to announce her birth, so we talked extensively about how we were going to do that. So, we had a photograph of her after she was born and she’s in my arms, but you don’t see her face... we want to be able to share those moments on social media, family photos and whatnot. But we limited it, not showing her face.”
When she leaves the house, she makes sure Aurora’s pram is covered with a sun visor so she can’t be photographed.
“It’s just being mindful of our surroundings, extra mindful around our surroundings with her.”
That motherly protection is something that was missing from Blanchard’s own childhood. Her mother Dee Dee is arguably the most famous example of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder where a parent or caregiver invents illnesses for their child in order to manipulate them and gain sympathy from others.
Dee Dee forced Blanchard to use a wheelchair and a feeding tube, undergo multiple surgeries, and chained her to her bed, telling doctors her daughter had muscular dystrophy and leukaemia. Blanchard and her former boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn conspired to kill Dee Dee in June 2015; Godejohn is serving a life sentence for murder.
For Blanchard, becoming a mother herself has brought up much of that past trauma - and increased her determination to do better for her own daughter.
“I didn’t expect the emotional aspect of revisiting my childhood,” she says.
“Some people expected that - I didn’t. I was the last to know that would hit me the way it did. It just made me want to be a better mom than what my mom was, that much more.”
Writing her memoir My Time to Stand, released in January this year, was “very therapeutic”, she says.
“It wasn’t until I was in the audio recording booth and I was recording the audiobook version of it that it really hit me extra hard. When you’re recording an audiobook, in comparison to writing the book, you have to become the person that you are narrating,” she explains.
“So, for instance, I had to speak in my mother’s voice, I had to speak in my father’s voice, and those moments were extra impactful for me. I had to take many breaks during the recording of that.”
Now, Blanchard is ticking off the days until the close of another chapter - her parole is set to end on June 25.
“I have a countdown calendar on my phone,” she says.
“I think the biggest restriction that my parole has placed on me is [that] you can’t leave the state unless you have permission.
“So we’re planning a vacation out of state - maybe Florida, maybe somewhere else. We haven’t quite settled on a destination yet.”
Last year, she told the Herald, “I have been wanting to come to New Zealand for a very long time, so I’d love to go there.” Are there any other overseas destinations on her bucket list?
“We want to go to the UK, we want to go to Germany - I mean, there’s lots of places that we have been talking about going for years and years and years.”
Closer to home, she’s been waiting to be able to visit friends and family elsewhere in the US.
“So, Ken’s family - half of them are in Texas, half of them in Florida, some are in Missouri. He has sisters in Missouri, so definitely visiting family and friends is important to us.”
Meeting each other’s family members is a big milestone for the relationship. Is there a wedding on the cards?
“We’re not engaged yet,” she says with a smile. “I’m waiting for him to ask!”
Above all, Blanchard wants a normal family life for her daughter as she grows up.
“I want her to have a happy childhood. I want her to have a happy life. I want her to get to experience the things that I didn’t get to growing up - I didn’t have a ‘normal’ childhood,” she reflects.
Like all parents, she wants the very best for her daughter.
“I would want to encourage her to find herself, be herself, go after her dreams, whatever they may be, you know, that’s what I hope for her.”
Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up season 2 is available to stream on TVNZ+
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