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Gypsy Rose Blanchard is ready to tell her story in a new book.
Her memoir, My Time to Stand, written with Melissa Moore and Michele Matrisciani, is coming from
BenBella Books in January 2025.
“I am in love with the title of my book not only because it addresses the question I get most, but because in our pain and struggle we can find what it is that we want to stand for,” Gypsy says in a statement shared with PEOPLE. “That inside our stories, if we dare to sit in the stillness of them, our purpose can be revealed. And we all have a purpose. That’s what I hope people will take away from my book.”
A victim of Munchausen by proxy, Gypsy was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to murder for her role in the death of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. In 2023, she was released after serving 85 percent of her sentence.
Dee Dee both mentally and physically abused her daughter throughout Gypsy’s life, fraudulently claiming that she had a terminal illness and the mind of a much younger child. After Gypsy’s then-boyfriend, Nicholas “Nick” Godejohn, murdered Dee Dee in 2015, both were convicted and sentenced to prison.
After her arrest and her trial, Gypsy’s story quickly spread, helped along by the dramatization of her story in Hulu’s Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning The Act starring Joey King as Gypsy and Patricia Arquette as Dee Dee. The case was also the subject of the HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest.
“The documentary focused on my journey to parole and my in-prison marriage. It is very much outward-facing. But as a survivor desperate to figure out ways to inspire others to find hope, it’s necessary to face inward—to question, to be introspective,” Gypsy says.
“In processing and retelling my memories, so much more truth has been revealed to me, including the victimization of the other people in my family and community,” she continues. “I hope to engage readers by describing my journey, instead of explaining it. In that way, others might see themselves in my story, too, and relate.”
The title has special meaning for Gypsy, who was forced to use a wheelchair even though she was able to walk. In putting out this book, she hopes to encourage others who have suffered adversity in their own lives.
“The first time I stood up on my own two feet was my first failed attempt to leave my mother. I
had the legs of a chick struggling to find a way out of the cracks. Who hasn’t felt unsturdy like
that in their own life?” she says. “The second time I stood up, I walked down a path I’ll regret forever. Again, too many people feel this way about their choices.”
This book, Gypsy says, will cover her journey toward standing in her own truth, because of the work she’s done on herself over the past few years.
“The third time I stood up, I did so as an incarcerated girl-woman who had so much to learn about independence, self-forgiveness and resilience,” she concludes. “Only because I did the work, did my time to stand finally come. Now, I can stand with other victims as they take steps toward doing whatever work is necessary to stand for themselves. My Time to Stand is about reclaiming my footing so others can be inspired to walk a life of purpose and meaning and build a future sturdy enough so others can stand for something, too.”
BenBella Books will publish the hardcover and ebook editions of My Time To Stand: A Memoir, with an audio version from Recorded Books, an RBmedia audio brand, releasing simultaneously.
My Time to Stand: A Memoir will come out in January 2025, and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
