Mommy Dead and Dearest

I think it will be very telling on this.

I'm on the side of accidental something driven by the insanity of the situation with her because, I mean, just again, I'm only watching a documentary on her.

And you're just seeing such emotional flip-flopping constantly.

especially for someone who started out, I just looked it up if he liked the limelight.

Right.

What about that one documentary where these people are, they really do take themselves as seriously.

I mean, they have like their own farm where they only use it.

Right.

Happy birthday.

Thank you.

And I know you guys are big documentary guys, man.

You need to check out Dead Tommy Dearest.

My guest today is Erin Lee Carr.

She's the director of Mommy Dead and Dearest and Britney vs. Spears.

Her new hit Hulu documentary is one of the five most watched movies in America, The Swan Behind the Mirror, which goes back to the women 20 years later.

Erin unearthed jaw-dropping details about how much say the women had in their procedures.

Mm-hmm.

Um, she did Mommy Dead and Dearest.

Oh, that's good.

That was a great one.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard walked out of a Missouri prison on December 28th, 2023 after serving eight and a half years for helping plan her own mother's murder.

Three years later, she had a reality show, a Netflix documentary, two books, a nose job, a baby, a husband, a divorce, a restraining order, a lawsuit, and over 9 million TikTok followers cheer her on, and she was making random dance videos like nothing happened.

Almost everyone knows how Gypsy was manipulated by her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, into thinking she was sick for years.

Dee Dee built that lie brick by brick, from a fake diagnosis to a forged birth certificate, and doctors and courts later confirmed it was all a facade to secure donations from well-meaning members of her community.

Less than a month after that divorce filing, in late April 2024, Gypsy moved on with a completely different man, Ken Urker, her baby's daddy.

The two of them actually went back years.

Urker first reached out to Gypsy in 2017 as a pen pal after watching the HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest.

The two grew close through letters and prison visits, and he proposed to her in person during a 2018 visit, but the relationship didn't lead to marriage back then.

Yeah.

And same with, um, Mommy Dead and Dearest, which was the documentary about...

Oh my God, I cannot remember her name.

But it was the young girl who was, uh, her- her mother sort of pretended that she was, she was ill her whole life-

Mm-hmm.

I learned from the documentary that a lot of mothers that do this, that they start out doing it They're all kind of start out by asking for a feeding tube.

I thought that was interesting.

Oh, what? A feeding tube?

I, I-

With, like, first step in if you wanna inflict pain on your kid?

I- it's interesting though, isn't it? That, that they said in the documentary that it starts out usually with a, a feeding tube.

You know, you mentioned the sleep apnea, and I asked how old.

Shit, 2017 was 10 years ago.

[sighs] Time flies when you're having fun, right? Ken Urker sat down, watched an HBO documentary about Gypsy Rose Blanchard, and made a choice.

Gypsy was serving 10 years in a Missouri prison for her role in her mother's murder, but Ken decided not just watch the doc, move on with life.

"You know what? I'm gonna write her." Picked up a pen, wrote her a letter.

He was never looking for the spotlight, apparently, and until twenty seventeen, he had no reason to end up in it.

But he chose to step into that world.

That's a choice, to write Gypsy Rose after you see a documentary about a girl that was being horrendously abused by her mother, Dee Dee.

We know the whole story.

And I don't want to speak ill of the dead either, but even when it comes to Ken...

You gotta question, right? You gotta question because his relationship with Gypsy started initially first conversations when she was still in prison after the documentary goes out, Mommy, Dad and Dearest, right? That's when they get together or start talking for the first time.

It's got to make you question why would somebody...

I could see wanting to offer support, especially after Mommy, Dad, and Dearest.

Because if you just watched that HBO documentary, and that is how you were introduced to the case, you would say, okay, this is a victim of Munchausen by proxy.

What a horrible situation this young woman was caught up in.