‘The Act’s Joey King & Gypsy Rose Blanchard Had Private Chat Amid Rumors of Feud

After weeks of swirling speculation that Joey King and Gypsy Rose Blanchard may have bad blood, King shares that the two have talked, and that there is no tension between them.

“She and I have privately talked a little bit, which has been really nice,” King told Variety.

In Hulu‘s drama mini-series The Act, The Kissing Booth actress portrayed Blanchard, a Missouri woman who was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder for persuading her then-boyfriend to kill her mother after suffering years of abuse as a victim of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.

In late December, Blanchard was released from prison on parole after serving eight years of her 10-year sentence. During the trial, Blanchard revealed that her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, had fabricated illness on her behalf, claiming that she had leukemia, asthma, and muscular dystrophy, as well as deliberately made her ill so that she could have “proof” of these false claims. In 2015, Blanchard and her at-the-time boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, conspired to murder Dee Dee. Godejohn came to their home in the middle of the night and stabbed Dee Dee to death, landing him with a first-degree murder charge and being sentenced to life in prison.

For her portrayal of Blanchard in The Act, King won a Golden Globe and received an Emmy nomination. And although the Hulu series is based on her life, Blanchard claims that she was never approached by anyone who worked on The Act or paid for the series.

King decided not to disclose specific details from her conversation with Blanchard, but wanted to shut down any “hate-fueled rumors [online] that there’s a beef between.”

“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.”

She continued, saying, “There was no air to clear at all. There was nothing wrong. But it was nice to just connect for a minute. I think it’s so great that she’s free and she can really start her life now.”

Blanchard shares her story in a six-hour special on Lifetime called The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, which reached 9.8 million views.