The subject of ‘Mommy Dead and Dearest’ was forced to play the role of the perfect disabled child. Since her release from prison, Gypsy Rose Blanchard now has to perform the perfect abuse survivor to her almost 10 million TikTok followers.
followers. Her feeds show her settling into life in Louisiana: posting a shopping haul from a girls’ day; playing with her Malchi puppy named Pixie; date nights with her husband, Ryan, aton Broadway and an All Elite Wrestling match. There’s something fitting about that last one, with professional wrestling’s famous mixture of fictional performance and real-life violence resonating strangely with her own story.
In some ways, the latest turn in Gypsy’s story falls perfectly in line with the rest of it. Even people involved in the case seem unable to talk about it without pop-culture touchstones. Gypsy has described the fantasy world of fairy tales and Disney movies — an eternal world of childhood where parents are either absent or can’t be trusted — which helped her survive her years of abuse.
In staging herself and her daughter as the ideal objects of charity, Dee Dee locked their story forever in the border between reality and a burlesque of it, so much so that Gypsy has no choice but to keep performing. And in 2024, where else to perform than online? Especially if you’re a convicted murderer with no education, no job experience, and severe trauma who needs to make rent.