This HBO Max Documentary Is Heartbreaking and Infuriating

Tyler Doupe' |

Apr 28, 2023

I recently sat down to watch the HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest and I have not been able to stop thinking about it in the days since. The film is simultaneously heartbreaking and infuriating. Possibly even more horrifying than the murder at the center of the doc is the abuse that led up to it. I would normally never classify anything as more horrifying than murder. But the details that preceded the homicide chronicled in the film are pretty twisted.

In short: A mother subjected her daughter to decades of abuse for selfish gain. She robbed her little girl of a childhood and convinced her daughter she was terminally ill to fulfill some kind of sadistic need. Murder is never the answer to any problem. Full stop. But in this case, I think it’s important to take into account the mitigating circumstances that led to that tragic outcome.

Mommy Dead and Dearest chronicles the 2015 murder of Dee Dee Blanchard, which was orchestrated by her daughter, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, and Gypsy’s boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn. Gypsy and Nicholas plotted Dee Dee’s murder as a means of liberating Gypsy from her mother’s overbearing control. Dee Dee convinced Gypsy she was afflicted with leukemia, asthma, and muscular dystrophy. She even went so far as to persuade a physician that Gypsy needed a feeding tube. That conceit ultimately afforded Dee Dee total control over her daughter, giving her sole discretion over which nutrients Gypsy received and which medicines were administered.

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She additionally claimed that Gypsy was developmentally disabled and had serious hearing and vision problems. Dee Dee used Gypsy’s fabricated ailments as a means to control her daughter, as well as to garner sympathy and charitable donations from organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Years of manipulation and deceit at the hands of her mother ultimately led to Gypsy plotting Dee Dee’s death with Godejohn, a man she met on a Christian dating site.

This true crime documentary is heartbreaking for so many reasons. One of the most devastating realizations is that Gypsy never knew autonomy. Even as an adult, her mother would orchestrate every aspect of her life. Dee Dee would tell Gypsy what to say, what to do, and where she could go. Moreover, she lied to Gypsy about her age. Dee Dee convinced her daughter she was still a little girl into adulthood. And in doing so, she managed to exert even more influence.

Matters were additionally complicated by the fact that Gypsy Rose didn’t realize that her ailments were invented by her mother. Gypsy knew she could walk, in spite of Dee Dee’s insisting she rides around in a wheelchair. But many of her other ‘conditions’ felt real because her mother (who was afflicted with Munchausen by proxy, a condition that causes a parent or caregiver to exaggerate, invent, or cause illness in a child, usually for the purpose of sympathy or attention) would give her medications that would produce symptoms similar to the conditions with which Gypsy was supposed to have been afflicted.

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Additionally, Dee Dee convinced Gypsy that the best course of action regarding her ‘leukemia’ was to shave her head because her hair would fall out anyway. As we learn, aside from the abuse she suffered at the hands of a very troubled mother, there was nothing medically wrong with Gypsy.

We eventually find out that Dee Dee was so proficient at manipulation that when accusations of abuse were reported, she successfully convinced the police that Gypsy was incompetent (which was then put on record). In doing so, Dee Dee removed one of Gypsy’s only remaining lifelines, effectively forcing the child to stay in her mother’s care, indefinitely.

Over the course of her childhood, Gypsy was failed by her mother and by the system at nearly every turn. And while that certainly does not justify Gypsy orchestrating the death of her mother, it does make her fragile state of mind easier to comprehend and gives the viewer cause to hope for leniency in her sentencing.

I will leave the rest of the story untold, so as not to reveal too much. But I can assure you that the doc provides a look at the case from its inception to its conclusion.

If you are interested in checking out the film for yourself, Mommy Dead and Dearest is available to stream on HBO Max.