Gypsy Rose Blanchard announces she's pregnant, expecting first child with boyfriend Ken Urker
“It was completely unexpected, but we're both very excited to take on this new journey of parenthood."
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is having a baby.
The 32-year-old, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her involvement in the 2015 murder of her mother Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, announced in a YouTube video that she and her partner, Ken Urker, are expecting their first child together.
"I know the rumors have been flying around for quite some time now, and I'm happy to announce that I am 11 weeks pregnant,” Blanchard explained. "Ken and I are expecting our very first child come January of 2025.”
Related: Fact-checking The Act: Here’s the true story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard
The Gypsy Rose: Life after Lockup star clarified that the pregnancy was “not planned at all,” adding, “It was completely unexpected, but we're both very excited to take on this new journey of parenthood."
Blanchard was released from prison last December after pleading guilty to second-degree murder for her role in the murder of her mother, who abused her for years via Munchausen syndrome by proxy. In the clip, she took a moment to address some of the concerns that her followers may have about her pregnancy moving forward.
"I know that there are going to be people who feel like I'm not ready to be a mother, and I don't know if anyone's really ready to be a mother,” she said. “I don’t know anybody that said, ‘Okay, I’m ready, I’m doing this.’”
Blanchard, whose story inspired Hulu's scripted crime drama The Act, became visibly emotional as she described the mother that she hopes to become for her little one. “All the things that I wanted in a mother, I want to give to this baby," she said. "I am a mother now and I am happy, and I just want to be a good mother for my child. I want to be everything my mother wasn't."
Blanchard and Urker first met as pen pals while she was serving her 10 year prison sentence for the murder of her mother, according to PEOPLE. The pair had an on-and-off relationship over the years, with Urker even proposing in 2018, before ultimately going their separate ways.
However, the pair later rekindled their romance shortly after Blanchard split from ex-husband Ryan Anderson in March.
"Ken and I reconnected as friends. It wasn't like, jump out of a marriage and then let me meet up with you, and boom, we're in a relationship," she told PEOPLE in May. "We had kept a friendship for the longest time. He was in a relationship. I was with Ryan, and so we were living different lives with respect to our partners, a 'wish you the best' type of thing."
Speaking with the outlet last December, Blanchard explained that she won't be passing any of her late mother's influence to her own children. "Whenever someone says, 'Do you think that because of what you went through, you're going to do that to your kids?' I say, 'You know what? Absolutely not,'" she said at the time. "I have learned what not to do. I have no concerns about my parenting when it comes to that."
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.