I don’t follow gossip in 90% of cases. It’s not an aversion to it really, I’m not going to pretend I’m above saucy rumors—but I have only so many hours in the day and have to try and not waste too many of them. I still do, of course.

I first heard about Blanchard through Josh Johnson, one of my all-time favorite comedians. He had a set where he talked about the events that brought her to prominence, so I went to Wikipedia. I was more interested in her at-the-time boyfriend to tell the truth, since as Johnson told it the man was all too eager to commit the crime. A quick overview for anyone not familiar: Gypsy Rose Blanchard grew up with a mother who by all accounts had Munchausen-syndrome-by-proxy, a mental disorder that results in the afflicted seeing another person as being sick when they are not. Blanchard grew up being treated as a very sickly young girl who, by her accounts was routinely threatened and abused by her mother. She eventually met a man online, still living with her mother even as an adult, and convinced that man to kill her mother. She and the man were caught very quickly, but as the details of the case came out sympathy shifted from the murdered mother to her daughter due to her treatment by her mother.

It’s one of those human interest stories that’s hard to not find interesting; I’m personally in the camp of ‘it was wrong, but completely understandable and not deserving of life in prison.’ In essence, all’s well that ends well considering how things have turned out. But that’s not really the purpose of this rambling. It feels like Blanchard’s got a connection to a lot of things I engage with. I’m aware of the frequency illusion; of course I’ll only notice these occurrences after finding out who Blanchard is.

Still, it’s bizarre how extensive the overlap is. The name of one of my friend’s characters in a game: Gypsy Rose Blanchard reference. The cashier at my local supermarket I chat with if there’s no one else in line: a friend-of-a-friend of Blanchard’s from childhood. The ultra-jacked muscle lady I whose pictures I came across several days ago? A close friend of Blanchard’s. I’m half expecting it to come out now that Blanchard was one of the participants in the Devil May Cry tournaments I used to participate in. Or that I’m somehow six degrees away from her myself. Fuck you, Kevin Bacon.

You know, if you showed me Kevin Bacon in a line-up I don’t think I could pick him out. I loved Waterworld but it’s been so long I can’t remember his face.

Update: I was joking about the Devil May Cry connection, but the aforementioned close friend of Blanchard, the muscle woman I came across? Nadiya Vizier. This image was on her website:

I was joking. Motherfucker.