Gypsy Rose Blanchard claimed in her first TV interview since being freed from prison that murdering her mother Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard was “the only way out” from suffering ongoing Munchausen by proxy abuse.
“I didn’t want her dead. I just wanted out of my situation and I thought that was the only way out,” the now-32-year-old told Good Morning America in a sit-down interview that aired Friday local time, per the New York Post.
“I don’t believe my mother was a monster. She had a lot of demons that she was struggling with.”
Blanchard said her mother forced her for years to pretend she was suffering from terminal and debilitating diseases, making her travel in a wheelchair and use a feeding tube even though she was healthy.
She was 23 and addicted to prescription painkillers when she and her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, hatched the plan to stab Clauddine.
“I share my story to be a cautionary tale so that the next person that might be in a situation like mine, they don’t take the route that I did,” the freed killer said.
Blanchard was released from a Missouri prison last Thursday after serving most of her 10-year sentence for concocting the plan with Godejohn to kill her mother in 2015.
Godejohn, meanwhile, remains behind bars, serving a life sentence for Clauddine’s stabbing death. He is not allowed to have any contact with Blanchard.
When journalist Deborah Roberts asked Blanchard in the GMA interview whether she thought it was fair that she is allowed to walk free while Godejohn remains incarcerated, Blanchard simply replied: “I am sure we both have a lot of regrets.”
“All I can say is I did my time, he is doing his time for his part and I wish him well on his journey.”
Munchausen by proxy syndrome is a psychological disorder in which parents exaggerate or make up an illness of their children for attention and sympathy.
Blanchard has since become something of a star thanks to the 2017 HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest, about her mother’s killing.
She also has a book, Release: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom coming out next week, and an upcoming three-part Lifetime special, The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
She has already amassed more than 10 million followers on social media.
Experts now say she could earn up to $100,000 per social media post through endorsement deals, brand partnerships, and speaking engagements.
This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission