Gypsy Rose Blanchard Exchanged DMs With The Act’s Joey King: ‘Too Triggering’ to Watch Show

Gypsy Rose Blanchard briefly connected with Joey King after the actress played her on Hulu’s The Act.

“I had DMed her back in either January or February [and] she did DM me back, but that was our only interaction,” Blanchard, 33, said during the Wednesday, October 16, episode of “The Viall Files” podcast. “It was positive. I just wanted to reach out to her to let her know that from the 30 minutes that I had watched of The Act, I think she did a pretty good job. I wanted to congratulate her on her success.”

Hulu debuted The Act, a miniseries about Blanchard’s life, in 2019. King, 25, portrayed Gypsy Rose opposite Patricia Arquette as her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. (Arquette’s portrayal even earned an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award.)

Gypsy Rose and her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, were arrested in 2015 for Dee Dee’s murder. She was found dead with multiple stab wounds at the age of 48 that June. Gypsy Rose and Godejohn, now 34, planned the murder after Dee Dee allegedly abused Gypsy Rose throughout her childhood. (Dee Dee claimed that her daughter suffered from illnesses that she didn’t really have.)

After Gypsy Rose pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She served seven years before being granted parole and released in December 2023.

“I also felt that [Joey] was very brave for taking on me as a role,” Gypsy Rose stated. “She DMed me back and was like, ‘I hope that I did your story justice. I wish you the very best.’ So, it was a good, positive exchange. This woman played me in a popular show, so I, at least, want her to know that I am grateful for her taking on such a path.”

Since her release from prison, Gypsy Rose has not tried to watch The Act.

“I only watched a little of it because, I mean, I lived it,” she told podcast host Nick Viall. “It’s still too triggering.”

Gypsy Rose’s boyfriend, Ken Urker, also has not seen The Act.

“I felt the same way [as Gypsy]. I had seen the original documentary and multiple other subsidiary documentaries when we first met,” Urker recalled on the podcast. “By the time The Act came out, every time I would watch the new documentaries, it’s traumatizing for me to watch. It’s a very sad, traumatic story, so I didn’t want to see it again.”

Gypsy Rose and Urker, to whom she was previously engaged while she was in prison, reconnected in April after she filed for divorce from Ryan Scott Anderson. Gypsy Rose and Urker are currently expecting their first baby, a girl.