336 episodios
- "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
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices - 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 LeivaEdited by Puneeth Shenoy with The Podcast PunditsTheme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net
© Creative Babble 2026
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices - 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 TodayAndrea Dunlop, host of Nobody Should Believe MeGypsy Rose BlanchardBree, Fancy Macelli, Audacious Audrey, and Amber & Alaura of Into the Weeds
Credits
Written and hosted by Javier LeivaEdited by Puneeth Shenoy with The Podcast PunditsTheme 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/id6443456985Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/pretendradio
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices - I sat down with Alaura and Amber from Into the Weeds, the podcast that first dug through the Gypsy Rose Blanchard FOIA files. I wanted their honest reaction to my microdeletion episode, including the part where they felt like I'd pitted them against a genetic expert.
We discuss:
Is there actual evidence Gypsy was medically abused? I put a page from Dee Dee's medical file in front of them, a handwritten list of Gypsy's supposed diagnoses, and we argue about whether it points to Munchausen by proxy, malingering, or something the DSM-5 doesn't cleanly cover at all. We also get into the prison calls and how Gypsy seems to become a different person depending on who's on the other end of the line.
This is part one of a longer conversation.
The full, lightly edited cut is up on the PRETEND YouTube channel. Into the Weeds is part of Military Broadcast Radio, a nonprofit supporting veterans and military families, so go give them a follow.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices - 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
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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PRETEND is an investigative true crime podcast about real people who lie for a living — con artists, scammers, and the victims caught in their web.
Hosted by journalist Javier Leiva, PRETEND exposes the human psychology behind deception and fraud. Each episode follows a real case of manipulation — from financial scams and Ponzi schemes to digital hoaxes and emotional cons
PRETEND explains how and why deception works without shaming victims, combining ethical journalism with cinematic storytelling.
Featured in lists of the best podcasts about con artists and scams, PRETEND investigates crimes of persuasion, trust, and betrayal. New episodes drop regularly with stories that reveal how manipulation shapes modern life, both online and off.
PRETEND is produced by Creative Babble, LLC.
© 2026 Creative Babble LLC
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