Gypsy-Rose Blanchard posted a public apology on TikTok after racist prison phone calls resurfaced online.
Blanchard, 35, addressed the recordings in a statement posted to the platform on Friday, August 21, before the account was deleted. The calls contained what she described as “racist language” and “cruel, disrespectful comments,” including remarks about her sister Mia and Mia’s fiancé, André Pittman, who is Black. Blanchard said she had already apologized to the couple privately but wanted to publicly acknowledge what she had said after excerpts began circulating on social media.
“What I said was wrong. The words were racist and I take full responsibility for saying them,” she wrote. “There is no excuse for that language or the pain it’s caused.”
The recordings date from Blanchard’s time in prison following her guilty plea to second-degree murder for her role in the 2015 killing of her mother, Clauddine ‘Dee Dee’ Blanchard. Multiple clips from longer conversations with her then-husband, Ryan Anderson, and family members have appeared online in recent days. In one recording, Blanchard discussed her sister Mia dating Black men. Another captured her using the N-word when referring to fellow inmates, repeating the slur to make sure the person on the other end of the call heard her.
Anderson has also been heard using racial slurs in recordings from the same period. He subsequently addressed the recordings during a livestream, describing them as “smear campaigns” against himself, Blanchard and others heard in the calls.
Blanchard’s apology specifically addressed the Black community as well as Mia and André.
“To the Black community, I’m sorry for using words that are hateful and demeaning,” she wrote. “To Mia and André, I’m especially sorry. You didn’t deserve that then and you don’t deserve the hurt now.”
She also said she understood that an apology does not guarantee reconciliation.
“I understand forgiveness and reconciliation is not something I am owed,” Blanchard wrote, adding that she would respect whatever boundaries others needed.
Blanchard was sentenced to 10 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in 2016. She was released from the Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri in December 2023, serving roughly seven years behind bars.
In her statement, Blanchard stressed that she does not believe the comments from her incarceration represent her views today.
“Those words and attitudes don’t reflect who I am or what I believe now. I reject them completely,” she wrote.
She added that simply saying she has changed is not enough, saying her actions over time need to demonstrate that change.
The latest controversy is not the first time Blanchard has faced criticism over comments about her past. In March, she appeared in a TikTok challenge with social media personality Natalie Reynolds. During the We Listen We Don’t Judge trend, Blanchard made a joke about the circumstances that led to her prison sentence for her mother’s death. After the video attracted criticism, Blanchard said that the intention had been to focus on “accountability and growth.” She also acknowledged that she understood why some viewers were offended, particularly because people had followed her story and watched her change over time.
In the viral moment that first made her a household name, Blanchard was revealed to be the victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a form of abuse in which her mother Dee Dee fabricated or induced illnesses to gain attention and sympathy. Blanchard’s then-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn killed Dee Dee on June 9, 2015, after Blanchard convinced him to do so, seeing no other escape from years of medical abuse. Godejohn was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 25 years for armed criminal action. Blanchard took a plea deal for second-degree murder and served roughly seven years of her 10-year sentence before her December 2023 release.
Blanchard concluded her latest statement by saying she wanted to address the recordings because she should never have used the words in the first place.
“I wanted to make this statement, not because these calls became public, but because I never should have spoken those words in the first place,” she wrote. “To everyone I hurt, especially Mia and André, I am truly sorry.”
Blanchard and her current partner Ken Urker welcomed their first child on December 28, 2024.