‘The Act’: Everything to Know About the Real Story of Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard

Credit: Brownie Harris/Hulu

‘The Act’: Everything to Know About the Real Story of Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard

The Act doesn’t hold back. Joey King and Patricia Arquette take on the roles of Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee Blanchard, respectively, in Hulu’s true crime anthology series based on the case that made headlines in 2015 after Dee Dee’s body was discovered in Chackbay, Louisiana. “I read about it along with six million other people when I read Michelle Dean's Buzzfeed article, and that was well before I had any thought of working on it as a TV show,” cocreator Nick Antosca told Us Weekly exclusively about the case. Dean is also a cocreator on the series. “We had some conversations about how to adapt it in an elevated way, in a way that didn't feel like an exploitative true crime drama, and we went from there.” The series, based on the 2016 Buzzfeed article, follows Gypsy and Dee Dee after they have moved to Louisiana in 2007. At first, Dee Dee appeared to be a mother who’s constantly worrying about her chronically ill daughter and struggling to make ends meet. However, there was much more than meets the eye. In fact, her mother was faking her daughter’s illnesses, and after finding out, Gypsy and her boyfriend planned to kill Dee Dee. In July 2015, Gypsy pled guilty to second-degree murder for planning her mother’s death; she’s serving 10 years in prison. Her boyfriend, Nick Godejohn, was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. “After reading the article, you're left wondering, ‘How could that happen? How could love turn so toxic between a mother and a daughter?’” Antosca said. “This isn't a normal story of rebellion. It's far more extreme and complicated than that, and yet, it's rooted in relatable emotions and relatable character dynamics. We all feel controlled by our parents, and we all sometimes want to kill our parents, but this was the extreme version, and in a way, Gypsy's story is such a complicated and dark and twisted coming-of-age story, and I was fascinated by that. And I also was fascinated by the layers of deception. Gypsy lying to the world along with her mom, lying to herself and then lying to her mom in exactly the ways that her mom taught her.” Find out everything to know about the real-life story below.

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The Claims

Dee Dee claimed that her daughter suffered from muscular dystrophy, asthma, sleep apnea and leukemia, among other problems. Dee Dee fed Gypsy through a tube and pushed her around in a wheelchair. She did not have a job and stayed home as a full-time caretaker. Dee Dee would constantly remind others that her daughter had brain damage and had the mind of a 7-year-old, despite being a teenager.

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The Scam

Gypsy and her mother had survived Hurricane Katrina, and due to Gypsy’s medical issues that her mother claimed she had, received gifts from many charities including Make-a-Wish and Habitat for Humanity. In fact, Habitat built the home they lived in at the time of the murder. At nights, Dee Dee would set up a movie projector on her house and charge for concessions, telling the community the money went to Gypsy’s treatment.

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A Facebook Scare

In the series, AnnaSophia Robb portrays Lacey, a neighbor who Gypsy befriends. After seeing disturbing Facebook posts on Dee Dee’s page in June 2015, she tries getting into the house. However, in real life, Kim, a woman who lived down the street, actually was the first to see the posts and try to check on the mother and daughter, along with her husband.

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The Murder

In real life, Kim’s husband climbed through the window of the house – an action Chloe Sevigny does as Lacey’s mother, Mel – while Kim called the police. When the police received a warrant, they found Dee Dee’s body and Gypsy missing. Kim organized a GoFundMe account to take care of the funeral costs.

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Aftermath

Eventually, Gypsy and her boyfriend Nick were found; Nick surrendered immediately. When arrested, Gypsy told police she was 19, but was actually 23, something police found out when her father, Rod, provided the birth certificate. Rod told Buzzfeed that he called Gypsy on her 18th birthday, but Dee Dee took the phone and told him that Gypsy “thinks she’s 14.”

Once Gypsy began realizing what her mother was doing, she snapped. In the year Gypsy spent in Greene County Jail before her plea, she gained 14 pounds, when most inmates lose weight due to the bad food. However, she was so malnourished before entering. She is now off all medications and has not had any health problems since.

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The Anger Continues

“It makes me frustrated that none of the other doctors could see that I was perfectly healthy. That my legs were not skinny, like someone who was [really] paralyzed. I don’t need a feeding tube. Stuff like that,” Gypsy told BuzzFeed in an interview done from prison.

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Dee Dee's Condition

As for why Dee Dee did what she did, the investigation points to Munchausen by proxy, a syndrome in which a person fakes someone else’s illness in hope of benefitting themselves.She went by multiple different aliases through her life, told lies about her family and of course, about Gypsy’s health.

The Act is now streaming on Hulu.