The Act is a dramatized account of a shocking 2015 murder in Greene County, Missouri that was reported in a Buzzfeed article in 2016 and went viral. Dee Dee Blanchard and her daughter, Gypsy Rose, are Katrina survivors who were provided a home in Missouri by Habitat for Humanity. However, these two were no ordinary mother-daughter pair. Dee Dee was the doting, caring mother for Gypsy Rose, an incredibly sick girl who suffered from asthma, leukemia, muscular dystrophy, and seizures, were confined to a wheelchair, and had the mental capacity of a 7-year old because she was born prematurely. But while Gypsy was one of the sickest girls, she was also one of the happiest. Despite the endless hospital and ER visits, Dee Dee and Gypsy traveled all around the country, going to Disney with Make-A-Wish and meeting celebrities like Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton. They were an inseparable pair. Gypsy thought of her mom as her best friend.
Behind closed doors, however, things are a little bit different. Dee Dee is sick too. Dee Dee has Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP), a mental health condition in which a caregiver makes up or causes illness or injury to an individual under their care. So, believe it or not, nothing is wrong with Gypsy. She can walk. She doesn’t need a feeding tube. She isn’t allergic to sugar. She doesn’t have leukemia. She doesn’t have seizures. She was constantly being fed medication she didn’t need, wasn’t allowed to eat solid food, and her mother never left her side. Sounds horrifying, right? For Gypsy, it was. After 7 years living in Missouri, Gypsy couldn’t take it anymore. After a shocking message was posted on Dee Dee and Gypsy’s shared Facebook account, Gypsy and her Christian Mingle boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, planned and killed Dee Dee. Gypsy is now serving 10 years in prison for manslaughter and Nicholas is serving a life sentence without parole.
If you want to know the nitty gritty details, you have to watch The Act on Hulu (new episodes every Wednesday). Before you do that, I highly recommend you watch the four-part 20/20 series on YouTube so that you can get all your facts straight, or else you’ll be googling through the entire show because you want to know more.
Now you have a new show to watch. You’re welcome.