Gypsy Rose Blanchard is back in the public spotlight – and surprise, surprise, it’s for all the wrong reasons.

 

On October 1, Blanchard’s on-again, off-again partner of roughly 10 years, Ken Urker, was found dead at his Louisiana home on his 34th birthday. Authorities are saying there’s no evidence of foul play so far, but the investigation into the case is still ongoing.

 

For her part, Blanchard said that she believes Urker died from a drug overdose, possibly stemming from repeated instances of online bullying and harassment. In the days following Urker’s death, Blanchard has backed a fast-growing petition to form stricter policies around cyberbullying, known as Kenan’s Law after her late ex.

 

“Ken was a public figure and experienced an enormous amount of public scrutiny,” the 35-year-old wrote. “Ken made reports. I made reports. Videos were reported. Comments were reported. Posts were reported. And many times, the answer we received was: ‘No violation.’ That is the problem I want to change.”

 

As outspoken and supportive as Blanchard has been about her ex’s death, not everyone is buying into the controversial media figure’s story.

 

Most tellingly, Urker’s sister, Autumn, didn’t mince words when it came to Blanchard, accusing her of lying about key details related to her brother’s death. “We are disgusted with her statements!” Autumn seethed. “She hasn’t even called my mother or any of us yet.”

 

Responding to the family drama, Blanchard fired back at Autumn, pointing to the long-standing tension between the two as the main cause for such testy comments. “It is no secret that Autumn did not approve of Ken’s relationship with me, and there has been significant tension between us, including public comments she made about me in the months leading up to his passing,” Blanchard said.

 

Of course, as anyone with a Netflix account or a vague understanding of 2010s true crime might recall, this is hardly the first time Blanchard has faced extreme public attention over the death of a loved one.

 

About a decade ago, Blanchard was famously involved in a high-profile court case revolving around the murder of her mother, Dee Dee, at the hands of Blanchard’s then-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn.

 

For her part in Dee Dee’s death, Blanchard ended up serving eight and a half years out of a planned 10 year sentence, while Godejohn is currently in the slammer serving out a life sentence.

 

While it might have seemed like an open and shut case at first, new evidence soon made it clear the circumstances of Dee Dee’s murder were like something straight out of a Lifetime movie (ironic considering that Blanchard now has her own docu-series on the network).

 

As per the evidence, it was found that Dee Dee had forced Gypsy Rose to undergo years of physical and emotional abuse in the world’s most severe case of Munchausen syndrome. In a childhood that makes Mommie Dearest look as wholesome as a Pixar movie, Dee Dee convinced doctors that Gypsy suffered from a range of serious ailments – including leukemia, epilepsy, and asthma – leading her to undergo numerous unnecessary treatments and dangerous surgeries.

 

To keep up the ruse, she had Gypsy confined to a wheelchair for most of her life, hooked her on pain meds, and regularly shaved her head to maintain the illusion she suffered from cancer. The reason for this? Probably a desire for control, financial breaks, and more than a few supportive pats on the back from strangers for caring for an obviously unwell child. (Oh, wait, Dee Dee also forged Blanchard’s records to make it look like she was younger than she was... so really that should be “obviously unwell adult whose awful childhood was extended into her 20's.”)

 

Once these disturbing bits of information came to light, the public quickly adopted a new view of Blanchard, wondering whether she was truly guilty of a horrifying crime – or whether she might have been a tad more justified than they might have first assumed.

 

All this being said, it shouldn’t be surprising that many people are raising eyebrows at Blanchard’s claims surrounding Urker’s death. While there’s certainly a possibility she really is the world’s unluckiest person when it comes to strange deaths happening around her, there might be more than meets the eye with this case.