Ryan Scott Anderson is speaking out for the first time since he and estranged wife Gypsy Rose Blanchard split.
“I’m not doing well with it,” Anderson, 37, opened up to the Daily Mail on Friday, April 6. “For me, it just came out of the blue.”
Anderson went on to explain that he was shocked Blanchard, 32, was spotted in Louisiana with her ex-fiancé, Ken Urker, to whom she was engaged in 2018 before calling things off in 2019.
“I had no idea she still had such strong feelings for him,” he told the publication.
Anderson’s reaction comes a week after news broke on March 29 that the couple was splitting up after less than two years of marriage.
According to People, Blanchard shared the relationship update on her private Facebook account in a statement.
“People have been asking what is going on in my life. Unfortunately, my husband and I are going through a separation, and I moved in with my parents’ home down the bayou,” she wrote. “I have the support of my family and friends to help guide me through this. I am learning to listen to my heart. Right now, I need time to let myself find … who I am.”
The breakup announcement was posted three months after Blanchard was released from Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri after she had served seven years in prison for plotting the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, in 2015 with her then boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn.
Following Dee Dee’s death, Gypsy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She was granted parole in September 2023, which allowed her to be released the following December.
While she was behind bars, Gypsy and Dee Dee’s story caught the attention of Hollywood and was documented via various TV shows and movies, including HBO’s 2017 documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest and the scripted 2019 Hulu miniseries The Act, which starred actress Joey King.
Anderson and Gypsy first connected in 2020 when Anderson sent her a letter in prison. Two years later, they made things official and said “I do” in a jailhouse ceremony in July 2022.
Before Gypsy was released, she told People that the couple were planning to have a more public wedding ceremony.
“We do plan on having a reception/redo wedding with all of our family and our friends and the dress and the cake and everything because we deserve that. I deserve that. He deserves that,” she said. “Our prison wedding was just something to where we can make our vows to each other. It was something that meant something to us. And I think the party is kind of for everybody else and us, but mostly for everybody else.”
However, things changed once the couple moved in together, with Gypsy’s friend Nadiya Vizier alleging that a fearful fight may have led to the breakup.
“He got in her face and screamed,” Vizier alleged of the altercation in a new interview with People published on Friday, April 5. She also claimed that after Gypsy locked herself in a bathroom, Anderson screamed, “‘Let me in! Let me in!” before she called a relative to pick her up.
“Gypsy said that she was afraid he was going to hit her,” Vizier told the publication. “He didn’t — but that happened in the past with her mother. So, her first instinct was to tighten up and be prepared. But she got to safety and called her lawyer, too. Ryan is a big guy, and she told me it was really scary.”
Gypsy reportedly took her belongings and traveled to her father’s house in Cut Off, Louisiana, after the alleged incident.
Us Weekly has reached out to Anderson and Gypsy’s lawyer for comment