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Debunking ‘The Act’ — Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s Family Tells the True Story of Episode 2

May 14, 2019 9:43 pm·

By Chelsea Duff

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When you’re watching something that’s “based on a true story,” well, you probably think you’re getting the true story. But Gypsy Rose Blanchard‘s family says that isn’t the case with The Act, the Hulu show written by Michelle Dean, who first interviewed the Blanchards for her BuzzFeed article. Gypsy’s step-mom, Kristy Blanchard, has expressed how upset she is about the show before. Fancy Macelli, a friend of the family and the only official owner of Gypsy’s life story, M.J. Pack, a journalist who covered the case, and Aleah Woodmansee, a friend and neighbor and the inspiration for Lacey, have all also expressed their disappointment. They told In Touch exactly what they thought about the show, and now they’re breaking down everything that they think episode 1 got wrong. Check out the gallery below to see where The Act differs from the true story of what happened to Gypsy.

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Gypsy Child of the Year

Child of the Year

Gypsy really did win a “Child of the Year” award, but not from the fictional “Springfield Gives” organization as shown in The Act. The Oley Foundation, a national non-profit organization founded to “enrich the lives of patients” dependent on feeding tubes, chose Gypsy as the Child of the Year in 2007.

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Gypsy at the Hospital

At the Hospital

In episode 2, Dee Dee and Gypsy head to the doctor’s for a check up, giving fans greater insight into the depth of the medical treatments that Gypsy suffered. As they walked through the hospital hallway, they were recognized and greeted by pretty much everyone they passed — which the family claims is just about spot on. “There were several months Gypsy literally saw a doctor of some sort every day,” Fancy said.

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Gypsy's Medical Record

Gypsy’s Medical Record

Fans also got a glimpse at Dee Dee’s extensive medical history for Gypsy, which the By Proxy writer says was even more overwhelming in real life. Though she has boxes and boxes of Gypsy’s medical records in her possession thanks to her work on her own show, she still doesn’t even have all of them. Dee Dee claimed both in the show and in real life that some of the records were lost during Hurricane Katrina, but Fancy claimed that wasn’t the case either. “Currently, we are trying to find out if Dee Dee placed a hold on them,” she explained. If that’s true, they “would need a court order to get them released to Gypsy.” Even so, “there was so much documentation in Missouri [alone], it’s staggering.”

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Dee Dee Talks for Gypsy at Doctor's Office

Talking for Gypsy

It was also pretty much spot-on that Dee Dee would essentially leave Gypsy out of medical conversations and speak on her behalf. “She didn’t really know a whole lot [about her treatments] ever,” Fancy said. “She basically got wheeled in and Dee Dee did all the talking and Gypsy just complied.”

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Doctor Suspicious of Dee Dee

A Suspicious Doctor

There was really a doctor who suspected that not all was right with Dee Dee and Gypsy, though Dr. Chandra is a product of fiction. If you watch the HBO documentary, Mommy Dead and Dearest, you can even get a glimpse at the letter the doctor wrote expressing his concerns.

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Dee Dee's Stolen Prescription Pad

Stolen Prescription Pad

Though Dee Dee “was smart enough to know … give [Gypsy] specific medications that created different kinds of symptoms that doctors wouldn’t have detected,” she didn’t need to rely on them for prescriptions. According to Fancy, the mom really did steal a pad so that she could write her own. “It’s something the police actually missed in their search,” she revealed. “Kristy found it under the mattress when they were clearing out the house.”

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Gypsy's Rotting Teeth

Gypsy’s Rotting Teeth

The rotting teeth were real — though, in case it wasn’t clear, they had nothing to do with sneaking around to eat sweets at night, something Fancy said never happened in real life. “They were rotting due to [her] seizure meds,” she clarified. “[Dee Dee] had [Gypsy’s] salivary glands removed, claiming she was drooling, but she created that drooling.” That also had nothing to do with the decay. Instead, it was all because of medication that Dee Dee had convinced doctors Gypsy needed.

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Lacey's Stick and Poke Tattoo

Lacey’s Stick-and-Poke Tattoo

Aleah has tattoos, but she’d be the first to tell you that they “all have been professionally done.” She continued, “For the most part, I keep them covered because not everyone appreciates it — and I get that!” She felt the scene was unnecessary, and so did M.J. “They’ve made her out to be white trash,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is unreal.'”

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Lacey's Joint with Gypsy

Smoking a Joint

Aleah also never smoked with Gypsy. “That never happened. Alcohol and smoking were things we never discussed,” she said. “Literally the most risqué topics we even touched on were boys … and at the time I believed she was no older than the age of 15, so we can all assume that remained pretty tame.”

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CPS Visit at the Blanchards

CPS’ Visit

The Children’s Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services really did make a visit to the Blanchards’ home, though it may not have been the suspicious doctor who called. “There was an anonymous call,” Fancy confirmed.

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CPS Visit with Dee Dee and Gypsy

Talking to the Social Worker

It went about as well in real life as it did on-screen. “Dee Dee convinced the worker that Gypsy was severely disabled. She gave her the same old song and dance about Gypsy being mentally slow.” However, Fancy notes that things could’ve gone much worse. “I, however, have no idea how on earth she didn’t get questioned on the state of the home,” she continued. “To say it was a mess is an understatement. It was disgusting.”

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Gypsy Getting Her Teeth Out

Extracting Gypsy’s Teeth

As in the show, Gypsy likely didn’t realize what procedure she was going in for when she got to the doctor’s, and it probably went about as it played out on screen. “Her teeth were extracted due to how rotted they were. [The] doctors believed it was due to the meds, and it actually was, but they thought the meds were necessary,” Fancy clarified.

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Gypsy Using White Board to Talk

Using a White Board to Talk

However, there was no point at which Gypsy would’ve been using a white board to communicate. “No,” Fancy said emphatically. However, she can’t pin down the actual timeline that existed between the extraction and when Gypsy got her dentures, though she suggests there was “no known waiting period” in between procedures. “We have no records of the dentures actually being made, but we know they were.”

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Gypsy Wins Springfield Gives Award

Winning Springfield Gives

Gypsy didn’t just win the Oley Foundation’s Child of the Year award. “She was in these things all the time,” Fancy said. “Special Olympics, Ronald McDonald Kid of the Year, Relay for Life.” The list went on. “It was something that happened a lot starting in Louisiana. … [The show] really downplayed the fraud that Dee Dee was committing.”

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Gypsy at Springfield Gives Awards

Singing at the Awards

In real life, Gypsy sang at a Relay for Life event — and Aleah said it wasn’t uncommon for Gypsy to take the mic on stage. “Gypsy didn’t speak like she had the mentality of a child,” she said. “That’s actually why whenever we had a Habitat for Humanity event, we would actually WANT Gypsy to speak. When Gypsy spoke, you were always moved. Whether it was because of her constant positive outlook on life, even the worst parts of her health, she could move a crowd to tears because she would touch everyone’s heart. The way she spoke wasn’t like that of a child. It was so incredibly eloquent every single time.”

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Doctor Questions Gypsy's Allergy

Confronting the Family

Though there really was a doctor who suspected that Dee Dee had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, now known as factitious disorder imposed on another, there was never any actual confrontation. “He never got the chance,” Fancy shared. Gypsy was never put in a position where she would be publicly questioning her mother’s accounts of her medical history, instead choosing to stay loyal to her mom rather than admit that something was wrong.

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Doctor Confronts Gypsy and Dee Dee

Dee Dee Is One Step Ahead

“[The doctor] wrote it in the records and sent off the letter to her primary care doctor. … One of the ways Dee Dee stayed ahead of everyone [was that] she requested every record from every doctor. Any time she didn’t like something they said, she never went back and never gave that doctor’s name in her records when going to a new doctor.” After seeing the note the doctor left in Gypsy’s medical file about MSBP, Dee Dee was able to get ahead of the accusations by never giving the doctor the chance to look more closely into the situation.