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The Gypsy Rose Obsession, part 5

September 8, 2026 · 43 min

Show notes

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 Today
Andrea Dunlop, host of Nobody Should Believe Me
Gypsy Rose Blanchard
Bree, Fancy Macelli, Audacious Audrey, and Amber & Alaura of Into the Weeds


Credits

Written and hosted by Javier Leiva
Edited by Puneeth Shenoy with The Podcast Pundits
Theme music by Joe Basile, thechicken.net


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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/id6443456985
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/pretendradio

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