"I didn't f---ing get my own f---ing mother murdered just so I could live for everybody else."

That is Gypsy Rose Blanchard on a recorded prison line, saying the quiet part out loud. She had taken the plea and could never be tried again, so she let her guard down. Then a content creator asked Missouri for the whole archive, and four days later the state sent it to her.

So what does Gypsy actually sound like when she thinks nobody is listening?

In this episode you will hear:

• Gypsy doing the math on her own fame. She is going to be rich when she gets out. It seems like everybody in her orbit is trying to figure out how to cash in on the story.

• Gypsy has a new mom. She tells her stepmother Kristy that Mother's Day is a good holiday and a sad holiday at the same time. You can hear the two of them becoming family in real time.

• Gypsy threatens Fancy Macelli. Gypsy talks about what she plans to do to Fancy when she gets out of prison.

• Gypsy at her loneliest. Man after man writes to her after watching her on TV.

• Gypsy talks about going to a cancer dental clinic. In a call about a broken denture, she mentions the oncology dental clinic that made it and lets slip that they will not take her now that she is not a cancer patient. The internet calls that the smoking gun.

• Attorney calls leaked. Some of these recordings are conversations with her attorney, Mike Stanfield.

I have listened to a lot of these calls and I am sure I missed some. Now, the State of Missouri released the Nick Godejohn's calls too, so there are even more coming. If there is a call you think belongs in this series, tag me on social media and I will get to it.

Stick around to the end of the episode, because I want you to meet the other Javier Leiva. He owns javierleiva.com, which is the address most people assume belongs to me. Listener tips and story leads land in his inbox by mistake, including some of the biggest breaks I have ever gotten, and he forwards every one of them my way. We have been talking for years and it turned into a real friendship.

His site is javierleiva.com. Mine is thisispretend.com.

Our Patreon community has grown into something I am really proud of. Supporters get bonus episodes, early access to new content, and now a private Discord server where we talk in real time about case theories and episodes, plus live video calls with me. Tiers start at $3 a month, and you can find the link at thisispretend.com.

Today's episode was written and produced by Javier Leiva.

Edited by Puneeth Shenoy with the Podcast Pundits.

Theme music by Joe Basile with thechicken.net.

Credits read by Beau Hale, PRETEND Patreon supporter.

More at https://thisispretend.com

2026 © Creative Babble LLC. All rights reserved.

Think I missed a call?Guest shout outJoin us on PatreonCredits

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There are people online right now who don't believe Dee Dee Blanchard had Munchausen by proxy. Some of them don't believe Munchausen by proxy is a real thing at all. So if the abuse wasn't real, how do you explain the feeding tube, the shaved head, the free trips to Disney?

We also discuss the violence in the house leading up to the murder. If Gypsy is the monster, what does that make Dee Dee? For Gypsy critics, the pendulum swings the other way. Justice for Dee Dee, the movement that says the real victim here is the woman who died.

Was Dee Dee a sick woman, or was she a con artist with a kid?

In this episode:

• Alaura Flowers and Amber Dietz of Into the Weeds

• Content creator Audacious Audrey

• Fancy Macelli of the Good Wives Network

• Nancy Simpson, host of The Toll podcast

• Gypsy Rose Blanchard

Want more?

Ad-free episodes, early releases, and the latest on the stalker case are on Patreon and PRETEND+ on Apple Podcasts. More at thisispretend.com.

Written and hosted by Javier Leiva
Edited by Puneeth Shenoy with The Podcast Pundits
Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net

© Creative Babble 2026

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According to the anti-Gypsy camp, they've found it. The smoking gun. Gypsy Rose Blanchard has a rare genetic disorder, a microdeletion on chromosome 1, and depending on who you ask online, that one word explains the feeding tube, the leukemia, the paralysis. All of it. Which means, according to them, Dee Dee Blanchard wasn't abusing her daughter at all. She was just a mom trying to help a sick kid.

So I brought in a genetic counselor and made her explain this thing to me like I'm five, because I am not a geneticist and neither is anyone else arguing about this on TikTok.

Kira Dineen, a genetic counselor, walks through what a microdeletion on chromosome 1q21.1 actually is and what it can and can't explain.

Featuring

Kira Dineen, genetic counselor and host of DNA Today
Andrea Dunlop, host of Nobody Should Believe Me
Gypsy Rose Blanchard
Bree, Fancy Macelli, Audacious Audrey, and Amber & Alaura of Into the Weeds

Credits

Written and hosted by Javier Leiva
Edited by Puneeth Shenoy with The Podcast Pundits
Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net

Listen and support

New episodes drop weekly. Early and ad-free episodes are available now on Patreon and Pretend Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/pretend/id6443456985
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/pretendradio

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According to the anti-Gypsy camp, they've got the receipts. Gypsy really had leukemia. She really needed that bone marrow treatment, and the feeding tube and the surgeries were all real and documented, not fabricated. Case closed, they say. Munchausen by proxy, debunked.

That's the claim, anyway.

Three hundred pages of Gypsy's private medical records ended up online, and I got my hands on them. So do the documents validate the claims? We're going to dig in.

Want more? Ad-free episodes, early releases, and the latest on the stalker case are on Patreon and PRETEND+ on Apple Podcasts.

More at thisispretend.com.

Written and hosted by Javier Leiva
Edited by Puneeth Shenoy with The Podcast Pundits
Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net

2026 © Creative Babble

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It's like getting to the end of a movie and discovering the twist, then going back to the beginning because every scene means something else. That's what I've been doing all week with the Rick and Tanya Fernandez interviews. This time we're looking at Shelbey Fernandez's surgeries, what the doctor told police in 2019, and new audio from Shelbey Fernandez herself, recorded before her arrest.

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Long before Gypsy Rose Blanchard's mother was murdered, the tension inside that house was already at a breaking point. The private videos between Gypsy and Nick Godejohn that nobody was supposed to see. The evidence of violence that the HBO documentary never showed you. And the text messages from the night of June 9th, 2015, read out loud, minute by minute. They are not what you expect.

Gypsy's critics say she was the violent one all along. That it was Dee Dee who had reason to be afraid.

Chapters

00:00 Everyone Has A Hot Take
02:26 The BB Gun
04:09 Chained To The Bed
05:11 Why Not Just Run Away?
07:23 Nancy Simpson: She Was Shopping For A Man
09:22 That Bitch Is Dead
10:40 Victim Doesn't Mean Innocent
11:19 The Plea Deal
13:17 When Nick Became The Victim
16:16 Functions Like A 10-Year-Old
17:52 I Still Love Her
18:43 Activating The Dark Side
20:34 The Texts From June 9, 2015
23:58 What Gypsy Makes Of It
25:15 Andrea Dunlop On The Autism Argument
26:56 Grace And Accountability
28:01 Why Don't They Show You The Same Grace?
29:35 On The Plea Deal
30:15 Is It In All Of Us?

Binge more episodes ad-free on Patreon at patreon.com/pretendpodcast or PRETEND+ on Apple Podcasts.

Written and produced by Javier Leiva. Edited by Puneet Shenoy with The Podcast Pundits. Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net.

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Her critics say Gypsy Rose Blanchard can't keep her story straight. So I sat down with her for almost three hours and asked about all of it. The pills through the feeding tube. The video where she tells Nick Godejohn she'd been hiding that she could walk since she was seven. And the Demona videos she has never addressed in front of a reporter.

You'll also meet the mother-daughter team behind Into the Weeds (youtube.com/@into-the-weeds-podcast), whose records requests produced what the internet calls the Gypstein Files.

Binge the first three episodes now, ad-free, on Patreon (patreon.com/pretendpodcast) or PRETEND+ on Apple Podcasts.

Chapters:

(00:00) Beignets And A Drive Into The Bayou

(01:50) The Questions Her Critics Say She Dodges

(02:36) No Mansion, Just A Fourplex

(04:48) The Breaking Point Was A Throat Surgery

(06:47) This Is My Voice

(08:19) Vicodin Through The Feeding Tube

(09:53) Did She Ever Go To School?

(11:46) Into The Weeds Files The Records Request

(12:59) What's Actually In The Gypstein Files

(15:59) The Video Where She Walks

(17:46) What Her Medical Records Say

(20:43) I Ask Gypsy To Settle It

(23:04) Videos Never Meant To Be Public

(25:56) Slave, Master, And An Old Facebook Account

(28:23) Dan Glidewell Testifies Under Oath

(29:46) The Demona Video

(34:25) Those Videos Were Disgusting

(35:14) Isolation And The Price Of Freedom

(36:10) Next Time On Pretend

Written by Javier Leiva. Edited by Puneet Shenoy with The Podcast Pundits. Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net.

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Gypsy Rose Blanchard is the most beloved convicted murderer in America. Half the country sees a victim. The other half thinks she conned everyone, including her mother.

I spent months trying to figure out which side is telling the truth. Then I emailed Gypsy. A few hours later, we were on a call.

Chapters (00:00) The Most Beloved Convicted Murderer In America (01:35) The Short Version (02:53) It's All A Lie (03:41) Inside Her Medical Records (05:26) Allergic To Sugar (06:10) The Community That Flipped The Narrative (07:48) Andrea Dunlop Interviews Gypsy (09:41) Then I Read The Comments (11:20) Straight To The Source (11:52) Welcome To The Gypsyverse (13:04) The Internet Does What The Internet Does (15:35) Is Gypsy Rich? (17:22) What Are They A Fan Of? (19:22) Famous vs. Well-Known (20:12) Billboards, Flyers, And A Minor Child (23:14) Nick Godejohn Is Still In Prison (24:18) The Demona Clips (25:54) Would You Answer Uncomfortable Questions? (27:47) Next Time On Pretend (28:24) Update: The Prison Calls (30:28) What I Will And Won't Play

Binge the first three episodes now, ad-free, on Patreon (patreon.com/pretendpodcast) or PRETEND+ on Apple Podcasts.

Leave a comment. I want to know what you think.

Written by Javier Leiva.

Edited by Puneeth Shenoy with the Podcast Pundits.

Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net.

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Gypsy Rose Blanchard is America's most beloved convicted murderer. The media told us she spent 23 years in a wheelchair, with a feeding tube, a breathing machine, and a diagnosis list that never ended. None of it was real. Her mother made it all up. And then Gypsy had her mother stabbed to death. When she walked out of prison in December 2023, not everyone was celebrating. A community formed online working together to dismantle her new life. So yeah. America's sweetheart is also a convicted murderer. And depending on who you ask, she's either the most sympathetic person alive, or the most dangerous woman on the internet. This is The Gypsy Rose Obsession. Coming August 11th on PRETEND podcast. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vaCjR7UvlN9aTIzW6kNCo?si=b3549d886084412a

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For almost five years, the Fernandez family told me their doctor's husband was terrorizing them. Threatening messages, unpaid pizza deliveries, police at the door for crimes that never happened.

Three weeks ago, Peoria police surrounded their house with a search warrant and seized every device inside. Nobody was arrested that day. Then this week, Shelbey Fernandez children was booked into a Maricopa County jail on more than thirty counts, including stalking, making a terrorist threat, and sexual exploitation of a minor.

All charges are allegations. No one has been convicted, and the case is ongoing.

Catch up on the full series here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/41KG24W8b5Lz0dzHsU3LoP?si=3aaeef5a367d4c2d

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William Ruzich's father stole his identity while he was deployed in Afghanistan. He came home from war at 21 to find bills, liens, and creditors in his own name. He turned his own dad in for fraud.

Then he went to work catching people just like him.

William is a private intelligence operative now, tracking down scammers, fraudsters, and people who vanish with other people's money.

Coming August 11th: The Gypsy Rose Obsession, a new free series from PRETEND. Watch the trailer and subscribe:

https://youtu.be/9fcD0os3aG8

Kingdom Forge, a book by Anders Edwards that teaches kids about online safety, Diary of a Wimpy Kid meets Ready Player One. Check it out:

https://a.co/d/0hpgdcYx

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