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6 major times The Act strayed from the real story

By Jerald Raymond Pierce

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The Act — “Teeth” – Episode 102 — Dee Dee is on a high since Gypsy will be given the ÒChild of the Year Award,Ó which makes Dee Dee feel like Mother of the Year. But before the big event, Gypsy has a dental emergency that gets the attention of a skeptical doctor who could expose Dee DeeÕs secrets. Dee Dee Blanchard (Patricia Arquette) and Gypsy Rose Blanchard (Joey King), shown. (Photo by: Brownie Harris/Hulu)

2. Gypsy’s dad was actually more involved

Gypsy’s dad, Rod, is technically included in The Act, just not by face. He calls to talk to Gypsy in episode four, but Dee Dee won’t let the two talk, and he sends child support payments.

The weird thing about how Dean portrays him in her version of this story is that in her original article she acknowledges that Rod (and his new wife, Kristy), “saw Gypsy often over the first 10 years of her life.” All that changed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Things spiraled and eventually Dee Dee and Gypsy moved away from Rod and Kristy. But here’s the thing, Dean says “Rod and Kristy spoke to Gypsy pretty often.”

So, while the show makes it seem like Rod wasn’t around or involved, he most definitely was. According to Dean’s report, he sent regular child support and gifts. Now, this might seem like a logical thing to minimize in favor of focusing on the mother/daughter relationship at the heart of this story. But here’s the thing: Rod’s involvement deepens just how manipulative Dee Dee was to an even more disturbing degree.

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Rod was around to know that Gypsy was born healthy, according to Dean. But then Dee Dee became convinced Gypsy was sick and, no matter what doctors said, she was insistent that Gypsy had “a chromosomal defect” causing health problems. The thing is, she seemed to have it all under control that the people around her, including Rod, just believed her.

Dee Dee had lied to the father of her child so effectively that…well, just read this segment from Dean’s BuzzFeed article:

"“The first time Rod saw his daughter walk was in a news report on Gypsy’s arraignment hearing in Wisconsin. No one had prepared them; Kristy had spotted the video on Facebook. Rod was so confused when he saw it that he said his first reaction was, ‘I was really happy that she was walking.’”"

Yeah. Dee Dee had so effectively lied about what was wrong with Gypsy that even Rod (who was actually trying to stay involved in Gypsy’s life) had absolutely no idea that she could walk until after Dee Dee died and Gypsy had been caught.

Dee Dee’s web of manipulation doesn’t stop at Rod, though.

3. Gypsy’s medical situation

We already talked about the fact that Dee Dee forged signatures in order to maintain control over Gypsy, so I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Macelli told In Touch that Dee Dee “fooled literally hundreds of doctors.”

According to In Touch, Dee Dee had Gypsy in and out of hospitals for check-ups and procedures multiple times a month.

I don’t know about you, but the show really makes it seem like Gypsy just spends a ton of time at home with her mom. Macelli complains that The Act undersells just how much time Gypsy actually spent in the hospital. Days on end, multiple times a month. Again, it’s Dee Dee instilling this mentality of control over her daughter.

Per In Touch’s interview with Macelli, while Gypsy knew she could walk, she thought that she could only do so for short periods of time. “She was starved and weakened by medicine, so she couldn’t fight back like they show or exert herself.”

So, if Gypsy was around doctors a lot of the time, then the times in The Act when a doctor and Child Protective Services tried to help her definitely happened, right? Well…

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