Debunking ‘The Act’ — Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s Family Tells the True Story of Episode 3
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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![Dee Dee Thanks People For Money](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Dee-Dee-Thanks-People-For-Money.png?fit=800%2C328&quality=86&strip=all)
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Fundraising Efforts
In the first episode, we saw Dee Dee throw a party for her neighbors in order to raise money for Gypsy’s eye surgery. In episode 3, we get a glimpse of her online fundraising efforts as she thanks people for donating money to the family online. Those acts of fraud were all too real — and they went far beyond what we see in the show. “Dee Dee scammed celebrities out of money, and charities for trips and gifts and donations on her Go Fund Me,” Fancy said. “The list went on and on. … At one point, Gypsy met the entire cast of Harry Potter. [Dee Dee’s] fraud was astounding.”
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![Confusion About Gypsy's Age](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Confusion-About-Gypsys-Age.png?fit=800%2C332&quality=86&strip=all)
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How Old Is Gypsy?
The fraud continues when Dee Dee lies about Gypsy’s age at the comics convention, and it was hardly an isolated incident. In the show, Dee Dee says Gypsy was born in 1995 — but Gypsy thought she was born in 1993. In reality, there were so many conflicting documents that even law enforcement wasn’t able to verify Gypsy’s age while she was missing, stating that she was between the ages of 19 and 23 in 2015.
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![Dee Dee Meets Wolverine](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Dee-Dee-Meets-Wolverine.png?fit=800%2C329&quality=86&strip=all)
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Wolverine #1
Though the show invents two men that Dee Dee and Gypsy meet at the convention, Fancy says there was “NEVER” a man that Dee Dee considered dating. “She never pursued anyone.”
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![The Act Episode 3 Two Wolverines](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/The-Act-Episode-3-Two-Wolverines.png?fit=800%2C330&quality=86&strip=all)
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Wolverine #2
That second Wolverine did exist, though. His name was changed in the show, but Gypsy really did meet a man at a convention who she secretly stayed in touch with online behind her mother’s back.
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![Gypsy Joins Facebook](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Gypsy-Joins-Facebook.png?fit=800%2C330&quality=86&strip=all)
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A Secret Facebook
Gypsy did have a secret Facebook account, one she used to talk to people online. According to Aleah, she “actually had several different accounts she made over time.” However, the timeline on when Gypsy started using it isn’t exactly accurate to the show.
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![Gypsy Discovers Her Real Age](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Gypsy-Discovers-Her-Real-Age.png?fit=800%2C331&quality=86&strip=all)
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Gypsy’s Real Age
In The Act, Gypsy discovers that she was actually born in 1991 when she’s making her Facebook account. In real life, Fancy says Gypsy didn’t start sneaking around to use the internet until after she’d already discovered that her mom was lying about her age. “She wanted to get some sort of human contact outside of the home,” the writer said.
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![Gypsy Buys Secret Phone at Gas Station](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Gypsy-Buys-Secret-Phone-at-Gas-Station.png?fit=800%2C330&quality=86&strip=all)
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Buying a Secret Phone
According to the family, there was no secret phone in real life. “She didn’t steal money from her mom to go buy a phone,” Fancy said. “The phone [she used] was a phone that she had on her mom’s plan.” Though Gypsy does a lot of sneaking around to buy contraband in the show, the family says, “She was not ever really far enough from her mom for that to happen.”
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![Gypsy Buys Secret Phone](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Gypsy-Buys-Secret-Phone.png?fit=800%2C327&quality=86&strip=all)
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Talking to Scott
She was in contact with Scott, though the relationship isn’t like the one portrayed on screen. According to the family, they relationship never got that deep. Gypsy only ever talked about marriage with Nick, her boyfriend who killed her mom years later. “It’s very important, honestly, that [those conversations] be with Nick and not be with Scott, because it shows a deeper level of the relationship that she had fostered with Nick,” Fancy said.
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![Gypsy Talks About Scott To Lacey](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Gypsy-Talks-About-Scott-To-Lacey.png?fit=800%2C331&quality=86&strip=all)
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Talking to Lacey
In the show, Gypsy tells Lacey all about Scott and the wedding they’re going to have — but in real life, those conversations were never about Scott. “When Gypsy is sitting there on the porch when she’s talking to [Lacey] about Scott and she’s gonna have this white wedding, and have two kids, and everybody loves red roses and that whole scene — well, that did happen. But that happened in relation to Nick,” Fancy said. “It makes Gypsy look like she was going to marry anybody she could get her hands on,” Kristy agreed. “It [makes it seem that] she would clutch onto anybody that, you know, was willing to accept her.”
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![Gypsy Looks Up Taxi Information](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Gypsy-Looks-Up-Taxi-Information.png?fit=800%2C331&quality=86&strip=all)
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Calling a Taxi
But Gypsy still did care enough about the real-life Scott to go see him in the hospital. The main difference was that she didn’t take a cab. “Aleah remembers that [story] clearly,” M.J. shared. “She says that [Gypsy] did hitch a ride there, but she hitched a ride in her wheelchair. Went into the hospital in her wheelchair. … She took her wheelchair to the hospital, and that’s such an important detail to leave out.”
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![Gypsy Walks Through Hospital](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Gypsy-Walks-Through-Hospital.png?fit=800%2C332&quality=86&strip=all)
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Waltzing Through the Hospital
Wig or not, the family believes that Gypsy would’ve been recognized at the hospital, and so she never would’ve risked walking around without her wheelchair. “This whole scene of her just waltzing up to [Scott] in the hospital bed and he’s like, ‘You can walk,’ and she’s just acting like everything’s normal [didn’t happen.] She was committed enough to what was going on in her life that she wasn’t just walking around and getting away with it whenever she could,” M.J. continued. “[The hospital staff] would’ve recognized her! As often as she was there, they would’ve recognized her, especially with her voice.”
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![Gypsy Leaves Runaway Note](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Gypsy-Leaves-Runaway-Note.png?fit=800%2C332&quality=86&strip=all)
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Runaway Note
Though Gypsy did try to run away with the man from the convention, it wasn’t because she thought they were in love and would spend the rest of their lives together. “Her writing a letter telling her mom that she was leaving to go get married, that did not happen with the Scott character at all,” Kristy said. “[That was] with Nick and it should stay with Nick.”
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![Gypsy Kisses Convention Guy](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Gypsy-Kisses-Convention-Guy.png?fit=800%2C328&quality=86&strip=all)
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Getting Romantic
In reality, Gypsy met the real-life Scott at his hotel room — but things never got physical. “She did meet this particular man. That did happen,” Kristy said. “But … they were just talking. There wasn’t any kissing, nothing like she does with the Scott character.”
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![Dee Dee Asks Gypsy To Come Home](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Dee-Dee-Asks-Gypsy-To-Come-Home.png?fit=800%2C332&quality=86&strip=all)
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Dee Dee’s Arrival
The way Dee Dee acted when she showed up also diverges from the truth. Dee Dee didn’t show up with an emotional appeal begging Gypsy to come home with her, she essentially forced her out of the room. A later scene in the show has Gypsy signing over guardianship papers to her mom, but in reality, Dee Dee had already forged the paperwork by this time. The mom showed up at the hotel room and “had papers [showing] that she declared her incompetent,” meaning that Gypsy was essentially a minor under her care, even though she was 19.
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![Dee Dee Yells At Convention Guy](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Dee-Dee-Yells-At-Convention-Guy.png?fit=800%2C330&quality=86&strip=all)
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Yelling at Scott
Though Dee Dee whispers to Scott that Gypsy is just a young teen as she leaves, in reality she had the paperwork to “prove” that her daughter should be under her care. “Her mom threatened this poor guy,” Fancy said. “[She] told him he’d go to jail for statutory rape.”
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![Gypsy Leaves With Dee Dee](https://intouchweekly-com-develop.go-vip.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Gypsy-Leaves-With-Dee-Dee.png?fit=800%2C328&quality=86&strip=all)
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Leaving with Dee Dee
“[The Act] shows that, basically, Gypsy willingly went home. That’s not at all what happened,” Fancy said. After Dee Dee threatened Scott and left with Gypsy, she threatened Gypsy, too. After discovering Gypsy’s attempt to run away, her mom forcefully brought her home, smashed her computer, and chained her to her bed. Though we see this play out in The Act, it happens much later — and the family says it changes the narrative. “It changes … what played into Gypsy ever trying to run away again,” Fancy said. Though it wasn’t an isolated incident, and Gypsy did make more escape attempts, the fact that her first one ended with her handcuffed to her own bed informed the rest of her life.