‘The Act’ Subject Gypsy Rose Blanchard Regrets Having Her Mother Killed: “Nobody Will Ever Hear Me Say I’m Glad She’s Dead”

On the eve of her prison release, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, whose harrowing story served as inspiration for the 2019 Hulu series The Act, has expressed “regret” over her mother’s 2015 murder.

Blanchard spent eight years in prison for second-degree murder after she asked her then-boyfriend Nicholas “Nick” Godejohn to kill her mother Dee Dee, who suffered from Munchausen by proxy and subjected her daughter to painful and unnecessary medical procedures in order to gain attention.

According to Blanchard, who spoke to People ahead of her Dec. 28 release, she resorted to murder because she was “desperate to get out of that situation.” However, it’s not something she’s proud of.

“If I had another chance to redo everything, I don’t know if I would go back to when I was a child and tell my aunts and uncles that I’m not sick and mommy makes me sick or if I would travel back to just the point of that conversation with Nick and tell him, ‘You know what, I’m going to go tell the police everything,'” she told the outlet. “I kind of struggle with that.”

She added, “Nobody will ever hear me say I’m glad she’s dead or I’m proud of what I did. I regret it every single day.”

Before she was murdered, Dee Dee falsely claimed Blanchard had muscular dystrophy and forced her to use a wheelchair even though she was able to walk. She also told people her daughter, who was not enrolled in school, suffered from Leukemia, and made her use painful feeding tubes.

Blanchard, who was portrayed by actress Joey King in the Hulu series, said the decision to have her mom killed came after she tried to run away ahead of yet another unnecessary procedure on her larynx.

“I just wasn’t having it,” Blanchard recalled. “She found me, brought me back and put in place paperwork saying I was incompetent and she had power of attorney over me.”

She continued, “I was trying really hard to figure out another way. That’s when there was a conversation between me and my co-defendant Nick. He said, ‘I would do anything to protect you.’ I said, ‘Anything?’ He said ‘Yes.'”

Godejohn — whom she met on an online dating site — received a life sentence, while Blanchard was sentenced to 10 years behind bars.

After years of therapy and an early release, Blanchard told People that her mom “didn’t deserve that,” before adding, “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.”

If you suspect child abuse, contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or visit www.childhelp.org