Joey King says she and Gypsy Rose Blanchard have recently been in touch.
“She and I have privately talked a little bit, which has been really nice,” King told PvNew on an upcoming episode of the “Just for PvNew” podcast.
King portrayed Blanchard, a woman sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder for the death mother Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard in Hulu’s limited series “The Act.”
Blanchard was recently released from prison on parole in late December after serving eight years for the 2015 crime. In Blanchard’s trial, she claimed that her mother suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy and had fabricated that Blanchard had illnesses including leukemia, asthma and muscular dystrophy. She also alleged that her mother abused her by deliberately making her sick to back up her false claims. Blanchard and her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, conspired to murder Dee Dee, with Godejohn stabbing and killing her in her home. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. The startling accusations horrific fallout between the mother and daughter became the subject of the Hulu series and several documentary followups.
Since her release, Blanchard has said that she was never approached by “The Act” team nor paid for the series.
While King declined to detail her and Blanchard’s conversation, the actor did want to dispel “hate-fueled rumors [online] that there’s a beef between” them.
“Having that private conversation with her was really lovely,” King said. “We both know that there’s absolutely no ill will towards one another. I really appreciated that we got to say those things to each other that were just really sweet and supportive because people are stupid and people assume whatever they want, and people are just going to make up stuff because it’s funny to them.”
King continued, “There was no air to clear at all. There was nothing wrong. But it was nice to just connect for a minute.”
King says she knew when Blanchard was up for parole: “I think it’s so great that she’s free and she can really start her life now.”
Blanchard’s post-prison life will be chronicled in a new Lifetime docuseries following the network’s “The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard,” a six-hour special that reached 9.8 million viewers when it aired last month.
King earned a Golden Globe and Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Blanchard and her co-star, Patricia Arquette, won both an Emmy and Golden Globe for her representation of Dee Dee.
Blanchard did not comment for this story because she is on a “media break,” a Lifetime rep said.
