Gypsy Rose Blanchard says murdering mother was 'only way out' in first TV interviews since release

Gypsy Rose Blanchard said murdering her abusive mother was "the only way out" in one of the first interviews since she served eight and a half years in a US prison.

Blanchard, 32, grew up believing she had leukemia and muscular dystrophy.

But in reality, her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, made up the illnesses in an effort to control and manipulate her daughter.

Dee Dee is said to have suffered from a rare psychological disorder called Munchausen's syndrome by proxy. Despite not being sick, Dee Dee had unnecessary surgery and medication.

Blanchard was sent to prison in Green County, Missouri, in 2016 for convincing her then-boyfriend to stab her mother to death upon realising she was not sick.

After being released from prison on parole on December 28, Blanchard has now given her first round of interviews with American broadcasters.

"I didn’t want her dead, I just wanted out of my situation and I thought that was the only way out,” Blanchard, now 32, told Good Morning America.

To CNN, Blanchard explained that she believes she would still be a victim of abuse if her mother were alive.

"I think that if my mother were still here, I would still be under this abusive medical abuse that I was going through,” she said.

"I don’t think that there would have been an end in sight for me."

She also opened up on her time spent in prison and how liberating it proved to be.

"For me, getting to prison was a chance to start a life for myself in terms of gaining independence from everyone," she said.

"Being able to just do something as simple as make friends for the first time, go out in the sun, enjoy a day with friends, socialising with other people my age.

"It was definitely more freedom than I had ever felt before in my life living with my mother."

Court filings show that Blanchard was in the home at the time of the killing and did nothing to stop it.

But she said she doesn’t think she could have gone through with it if she had to do it alone.

"I don’t have that in my heart," she told CNN.

"If people knew me, they’d know that I can’t even so much just kill a fly.

"It’s just not in my nature to have violence."

She continued: "I think it’s very important for people to understand that I was brought to a breaking point. Me as I am, as an individual, I could never kill someone."

Blanchard also said she feels like the system failed her - at the time, she felt stuck and that her life would never change as long as she was under her mother’s care.

And if she could speak to her mother today, Blanchard said she would tell her she is sorry.

"She was not an evil woman. She was not a monster. She was just a sick woman, and she would have needed a lot of mental health care," she said.

"I see for who she is now, or who she was."

Since her release, Blanchard has been sharing her freedom with fans on Instagram and TikTok, where she has six million fans on each site.

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