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Gypsy Rose Blanchard will be released from prison after serving 8 of her 10-year prison sentence on December 28. She was sentenced to a decade behind bars in July 2015, after accepting a plea bargain for her involvement in the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard. Gypsy was sentenced after her and her then-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn devised a plan to kill Dee Dee in June 2015. Since her mother’s murder, it’s been revealed that Dee Dee would regularly lie about medical conditions affecting Gypsy, as well as her age, and Gypsy has accused her mother of abuse.
While Gypsy and her mother’s relationship has been the subject of many interviews and investigated in documentaries and TV shows, her relationship with her dad Rod Blanchard has not received as much attention. Find out more about Dee Dee’s ex-husband here.
Rod Met Dee Dee While He Was in High School
Rod first crossed paths with Dee Dee when he was an older teen. She was 24, and he was 17. They had a short-lived relationship, but during their time together, Dee Dee became pregnant with Gypsy. He revealed that they chose her name, because Dee Dee liked the name Gypsy and he was a fan of the band Guns N’ Roses in an interview with Buzzfeed.
When Dee Dee got pregnant, the pair ended up getting married, but Rod revealed that he knew quickly that he wanted to split. “I woke up on my birthday, on my 18th birthday, and realized I wasn’t where I was supposed to be,” he told Buzzfeed. “I wasn’t in love with her, really. I knew I got married for the wrong reasons.” Even though they split, Dee Dee tried to save the marriage, but they did split up for good shortly after Gypsy was born.
How Dee Dee’s Lies Affected him.
Rod explained that while Gypsy got older, he began to notice some of the strange behavior with Dee Dee. He recalled calling his daughter on her 18th birthday, but Dee Dee said that Gypsy thought she was 14. He recalled that incident in an interview with Fox News. “A lot of times I would call Gypsy and she wouldn’t be available to talk to me, but the next day she was. I kind of felt… she was preparing her… I would call her on her birthday, but Dee Dee would tell me, ‘Don’t tell her it’s her 18th birthday. I don’t want to tell her how old she is.’ I just thought some of that was kind of weird,” he said.
“I think Dee Dee’s problem was she started a web of lies, and there was no escaping after,” he said of his ex to Buzzfeed. “She got so wound up in it, it was like a tornado got started, and then once she was in so deep that there was no escaping. One lie had to cover another lie, had to cover another lie, and that was her way of life.”
Since Dee Dee’s murder, Rod has spoken out against her parenting styles and how they affected him. “She was just a bad mother,” he told Fox. “She was always scared that I would get close to Gypsy. It bothered me. But I was always hoping that Gypsy would get old enough that one day we could bond. It got hard, it really did. But I didn’t want to push it too far. Dee Dee had full custody and could cut me off completely from any kind of relationship we already had.”
He Remarried After Splitting From Dee Dee
After divorcing Gypsy, Rod married his second wife Kristy, and they have two children of their own. After Dee Dee’s murder nad Gypsy’s claims about her mother began attracting media attention, Kristy recalled something that Dee Dee had once said to her in an In Touch Weekly interview. “Dee Dee would tell me, ‘When I die, I hope she dies with me, because one can’t live without the other,’” she said. “Now thinking back, it’s like, ‘Oh my god, she would’ve ended up — She would’ve killed Gypsy. She would have.’”
Despite Dee Dee’s Claims, He Did A Lot to Support Gypsy
When Gypsy was born, Rod told Buzzfeed that she was healthy, but shortly after her birth, Dee Dee began telling him that she was suffering from a chromosomal defect, and he believed her. After they split, Rod said that he was regularly in touch with Gypsy and Dee during her early years. While as he got older, he said that their plans to visit would often get derailed, he regularly sent money and gifts to Dee Dee and Gypsy. “There was never a question whether or not I was going to stop paying,” he told Buzzfeed.
When Dee Dee moved around, she would occasionally speak ill about Rod, claiming that she had fled an abusive ex-husband and claimed that Gypsy’s father was an alcoholic, who made fun of Gypsy’s disabilities.”They don’t understand that I’ve always been supportive,” he told Buzzfeed.
He’s Kept In Touch With Gypsy While She’s in Prison
After Gypsy agreed to a plea bargain for her part in her mother’s murder, Rod and Kristy met with her for the first time in years. He has revealed that he’s kept in touch with his daughter throughout her prison sentence, and he showed that he was looking forward to building their relationship once she was released. “We email each other. She can call me anytime and she does. I’m keeping tabs on all of her accomplishments in school. She’s getting her GED,” he told Fox. “It’s wonderful. I can’t wait for her to get out so we can build on that foundation that we started here.”