Gypsy Rose Blanchard is looking forward to building a mother-daughter relationship with her child, Aurora, after she didn’t get to have one with her own late mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard.
“I think despite my relationship with my mom, I think there is something special about a mother and daughter’s relationship that I am so blessed to be able to live through with her because I didn’t have that with my own mom,” the Louisiana native, 33, told People in an interview published on Thursday, February 27. “It’s nice that I can just step into that role of a mother and see how it’s supposed to be.”
Gypsy, who welcomed Aurora with boyfriend Ken Urker in December 2024, suffered years of alleged abuse at the hands of her mother, who was believed to have had Munchausen syndrome by proxy. The mental illness caused Dee Dee to lie about Gypsy’s age and fabricate her daughter’s various medical issues, leading Gypsy to receive countless unnecessary treatments. Gypsy has also alleged that Dee Dee physically abused her.
The Gypsy Rose: Life After Lockup star escaped the alleged abuse by plotting and executing a plan to kill Dee Dee with then-boyfriend Nicholas “Nick” Godejohn in 2015. Gypsy went on to serve roughly eight years out of a 10-year prison sentence for her involvement in the murder before she was released early on parole on December 28, 2023 — exactly one year before the birth of her daughter. Nick remains behind bars after being sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The former prison inmate told People that she’s going to make sure to raise her daughter differently than how she was raised.
“My relationship with my mom does not come into my mind whenever I’m now a mom, and unfortunately, whenever it does, it’s negative,” she explained. “I haven’t even gotten to a point that I can honestly give you an honest answer that I could say I could bring that to my relationship with my daughter. There’s nothing I can think of. That’s sad, but that’s the honest answer.”
Gypsy announced in July 2024 that she and Ken, 31, were expecting a baby together on the heels of her split from husband Ryan Scott Anderson in March 2024. Gypsy and Ken were engaged in 2018 but split in 2019. She went on to marry Ryan, 38, in prison in July 2022, but they called it quits a few months after her prison release. Gypsy reconnected with Ken and later revealed they have a baby on the way.
“I’m happy to announce that I am 11 weeks pregnant. Ken and I are expecting our very first child come January of 2025,” she said in a YouTube video at the time.
Becoming emotional, Gypsy also reflected on her childhood and vowed to do better with her own child.
“All the things that I wanted in a mother, I want to give to this baby,” she said. “I am a mother now, I am happy, and I just want to be a good mother for my child. I want to be everything my mother wasn’t.”
On the other hand, during an October 2024 appearance on “The Viall Files” podcast, the My Time to Stand author admitted that it was “heartbreaking” that Dee Dee would never get to know her granddaughter.
“For me, it is heartbreaking because I do, from time to time, think about what could have been, and it makes me sad,” Gypsy said. “So, I kind of put that in the back of my mind.”
However, Gypsy has formed a close relationship with stepmom Kristy Blanchard and added that she would “be grandma” to Aurora.
When asked by fans on social media how she would “tell her daughter” why her grandmother isn’t around, Gypsy said, “My response to them is that Kristy has become more of a mother to me than my own mother was.”
