Gypsy Rose Blanchard 'taking things slow' with fiance Ken after briefly calling off their engagement
Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who is serving a 10-year prison term for the second-degree murder of her mother after becoming the victim of the Munchausen syndrome, has reunited with her fiance just hours after calling off her engagement, reports said.
“[The] engagement is on, but [they are] taking things slow and want to keep their relationship as private as possible,” Gypsy’s stepmother, Kristy Blanchard, was quoted as saying by In Touch Weekly on Wednesday, August 28.
She added: "But things can change. And if it changes … the rest will be kept private until they are ready for people to know. … [They] are keeping their personal lives personal from here on out.”
Blanchard's stepmother's statement comes hours after E! News reported that that the couple had called off their wedding plans. "The two were planning to get married in January while Gypsy is still in prison, but they have now canceled those plans," a source had told the outlet.
The insider added: "Both Gypsy and Ken are brokenhearted over the situation and still have nothing but love for each other. They each intend on taking some time apart to focus on themselves as individuals."
The report of their split came after it was reported in April that Gypsy was proposed by a man she met through the prison's pen pal program. Their romance started after he wrote to her several times and later went to meet her in jail.
While their relationship, as well as Ken's identity, was kept a secret by Gypsy's family, it soon made headlines when their engagement was announced. E! News obtained the only photo of Ken, standing with Gypsy and her stepmother Kristy Blanchard and father Rod Blanchard.
"Gypsy's family and her future husband Ken met in person for the first time in March," family friend Fancy Macelli told E! News at the time. "Gypsy and Ken are making plans to build a life together once she is released. Everyone had fun getting to know each other over a pot of Gypsy's father's famous gumbo. Kristy is such a supportive, kind and loving mom to Gypsy."
Munchausen is a syndrome in which a person fakes another’s illness in the hope of benefitting from that. In June 2015, Gypsy’s then-boyfriend Nicolas Godejohn had murdered her mother Dee Dee. According to reports, Gypsy orchestrated the murder with Godejohn after realizing that she was completely healthy. Throughout Gypsy’s life, her mother claimed that her daughter suffered from muscular dystrophy, asthma, sleep apnea and leukemia and fed her through a feeding tube.
The story of Gypsy's abuse by her mother was detailed in Hulu's "The Act", starring Patricia Arquette as Dee Dee and Joey King as Gypsy. The series recently received multiple Emmy nominations.
Meanwhile, Gypsy's ex-boyfriend Godejohn is currently serving life imprison for the first-degree murder of Dee Dee.
