Courtesy of Gypsy Rose Blanchard/Instagram
Gypsy Rose Blanchard Accuses Her Grandfather of Sexual Abuse Starting at Age 4: ‘This Happened to Me’
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is ready to tell her story as part of the Lifetime series The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, and in the upcoming documentary, she accuses her grandfather of sexually abusing her as a child.
Claiming that her grandfather Claude Pitre molested her, Blanchard, 32, told People in an interview published on Wednesday, January 3 that she will not stay silent anymore.
“I’ve gotten to a point where I can stand on my own two feet and say, this happened to me and I’m not going to let it affect me anymore,” Blanchard – who was released on December 28, 2023, after spending eight years in prison for her involvement in the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard – said. “And that’s why I’m talking about it now. And I think for me, making it known that it happened might prevent him from doing the same thing to another family member or another child or another person because he’s still alive.”
Pitre, meanwhile, denied Blanchard’s claims as part of the docuseries and shot back with alarming claims of his own about a young Blanchard.
“She was the one that was trying to touch me, and I’d say no, don’t do that,” Pitre claimed as part of the series. “She started doing that when she was about 4 years old.”
Producers took Pitre’s message to Blanchard, with the married woman telling them that she wants “nothing to do” with her grandfather. Meanwhile, she also claimed to have told her mother, Dee Dee, about the alleged abuse she suffered when she was 19 years old.
“I fully told her everything that happened, and she proceeded to let me know that he had done the same thing to her when she was a child as well,” Blanchard claimed in her interview with People. “It was hard for us to both come to grips with the fact that we had both been abused by the same person. And I think it makes me wonder what else, what other kind of forms of abuse did she suffer that I don’t know about?”
Blanchard’s shocking allegation comes as she divulges more information about her life with Dee Deem, who – due to Munchausen by proxy – falsely told her daughter that she had several severe illnesses during her childhood.
Blanchard went to the hospital more than 100 times in the course of nine years, according to the 2017 documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest, and had unnecessary surgeries including eye procedures, gastrointestinal operations and the removal of her salivary glands. Blanchard didn’t “respond very well to the anesthesia” used in the gland operations, leaving recovery a “really, really hard” process.
“To this day, it has left me with the side effects of having to clear my throat all the time,” Gypsy revealed after she was released from prison. “So I’m always, if you hear me, that is a constant thing that I’ve had ever since. And it annoys people to no end.”
If you or anyone you know has been sexually abused, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). A trained staff member will provide confidential, judgment-free support as well as local resources to assist in healing, recovering and more.
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