Have you ever felt like your parents were being too overprotective of you or holding you back? A new show on Hulu called “The Act” really takes this idea to a totally different level.
“The Act” is a show that is based on the real-life story of Gypsy Blanchard and her mother Dee Dee Blanchard. Gypsy was born a normal girl, but things took a turn for the worst after she fell off a motorcycle and hurt her knee. The doctors said she was fine, but her mother made Gypsy sit in a wheelchair even though she didn’t need to be in one. This is when things started to get way worse.
“Dee Dee had [Gypsy] shave her head to appear like she was undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia,” according to People Magazine. “She also had to sleep with a breathing machine and take medications that made her lose her teeth and induced symptoms of medical issues Dee Dee told doctors that Gypsy suffered from.”
Gypsy had a feeding tube implanted in her stomach even though she could eat perfectly fine on her own, was told she had muscular dystrophy and that she was a teenager with the mental capacity of a 7-year-old (she was in her 20s).
The twist to this story comes when we realize that Gypsy did not have a single disorder that her mother had claimed she had. She was instead a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. WebMD states that this disease is a psychological disorder marked by attention-seeking behavior by a caregiver through those who are in their care. Dee Dee wanted sympathy, money and attention, so she made up all of these things about her daughter to get just that. One question remains: how did people eventually figure out that Dee Dee was lying this whole time?
Throughout Gypsy’s life, she started to uncover the lies her mother told her. Dee Dee claimed that Gypsy was allergic to sugar, however, when Gypsy consumed sugar in private, nothing had happened to her. Gypsy uncovered her true age when finding her ID that stated that she was 19, and not 14-15 as her mother had told her. Gypsy started to go against her mother’s will and even had a secret boyfriend on Facebook named Nicholas Godejohn. In June 2015, Gypsy and her boyfriend murdered Dee Dee in her sleep and fled the scene. However, police found them the next day. After all her interrogations regarding the murder, the secrets of Dee Dee were exposed, and the world found out what she had done to her daughter.
Gypsy was “…sentenced to 10 years in prison for second-degree murder while Nicholas Godejohn has been sentenced to life in prison,” according to All That’s Interesting.
“The prison that I was living in before, with my mom, it’s, like, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t have friends. I couldn’t go outside, you know, and play with friends or anything. Over here, I feel like I’m freer in prison than with living with my mom. Because now, I’m allowed to … just live like a normal woman,” Gypsy told ABC News.
The show, “The Act”, on Hulu provides an interesting and slightly accurate take on all the events in the life of Gypsy. If you’re anything like me and love watching crime reenactment shows, this might be the next one for you!