Ruby Franke: Where is the disgraced YouTube mum now and what happened to her children?

She was once a hugely popular parenting influencer who attracted more than two million subscribers and numerous brand deals.

However, Ruby Franke's online fame disguised the abuse of her own children, which has since been described as "horrific and inhumane".

The 44-year-old gained a significant following through her 8 Passengers YouTube channel, where she shared parenting advice and documented day-to-day life with her then-husband, Kevin, and their six children.

The channel, launched in 2015, amassed more than two million subscribers before disappearing from YouTube in 2023.

In February 2024, Franke and her former business partner Jodi Hildebrandt were sentenced after each pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse.

Now, the three-part documentary The Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke is airing on BBC Two (after originally being available to stream on Disney+), examining the family's rise to online fame and the abuse that took place behind closed doors.

Utah-based Franke gained a huge following through '8 Passengers', which documented life with her husband Kevin and their six children.

Ruby and Kevin also discussed their Mormon faith and home-schooling.

But the channel repeatedly courted controversy over the couple's parenting methods. In one video, their eldest son Chad revealed that he had slept on a beanbag for seven months after his bedroom was taken away as a punishment for playing a prank on his younger brother.

Ruby defended the punishment at the time, telling Insider that Chad had chosen the beanbag over other sleeping arrangements.

Her parenting came under further criticism over videos in which she threatened to throw away her children's belongings and discussed withholding food as a consequence.

The 8 Passengers channel was eventually deleted. YouTube later confirmed that it had terminated two channels linked to Franke and said she would no longer be permitted to use, own or create other YouTube channels.

In August 2023, Franke's 12-year-old son escaped from the Utah home of her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, by climbing through a window. He ran to a neighbour's house and asked for food and water before asking them to call the police.

The boy appeared emaciated and had wounds and duct tape around his ankles and wrists. According to Franke's subsequent plea agreement, his wounds had been treated with cayenne pepper and honey.

Police subsequently found Franke's youngest daughter at Hildebrandt's home. Franke and Hildebrandt were arrested and each charged with six felony counts of aggravated child abuse.

In December 2023, Franke pleaded guilty to four counts as part of a plea deal. Hildebrandt also pleaded guilty to four counts later that month.

Jodi Hildebrandt was Franke's friend, counsellor and later business partner.

Hildebrandt worked as a licensed clinical mental health counsellor and founded a life-coaching business called ConneXions. She initially began counselling Kevin and Ruby when the couple were experiencing marital problems.

Ruby later became closely involved in ConneXions and the pair ran an Instagram account called Moms of Truth, where they shared parenting and relationship advice.

Hildebrandt also spent time living with the Franke family before Ruby and her two youngest children later stayed at Hildebrandt's home in Ivins, Utah.

Hildebrandt pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse in December 2023 and received the same sentence as Franke.

Franke's plea agreement revealed the extent of the abuse inflicted on her two youngest children.

She admitted forcing her son to perform strenuous physical labour outside for hours between May and August 2023, sometimes without adequate water.

He suffered severe sunburns that blistered and was deliberately isolated from other people and denied adequate food and entertainment.

After attempting to escape in June, he was regularly restrained. According to the plea agreement, he was sometimes bound with handcuffs and, at other times, ropes were used to tie his wrists and ankles together.

Franke also admitted kicking her son while wearing boots, holding his head underwater and blocking his mouth and nose with her hands.

Her youngest daughter was also forced to work outside, run barefoot on dirt roads and go without sufficient food and water.

Franke admitted telling both children that they were "evil and possessed" and that the abuse was necessary for them to repent.

In February 2024, Franke was sentenced to four consecutive terms of one to 15 years in prison. However, under Utah law, consecutive sentences of this type are capped at an aggregate maximum of 30 years. The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole will ultimately determine how long she serves.

None of Franke's children attended her sentencing, but she addressed them in court. "I'll never stop crying for hurting your tender souls," she said. "My willingness to sacrifice all for you was masterfully manipulated into something very ugly. I took from you all that was soft and safe and good.

"For the past four years, I’ve chosen to follow counsel and guidance that has led me into a dark delusion. My distorted version of reality went largely unchecked as I would isolate from anyone who challenged me."

She also said: "It is important to me to demonstrate my remorse and regret without blame. I take full accountability for my choices, and it is my preference that I serve a prison sentence."

Franke remains incarcerated at Utah State Correctional Facility. Her first parole hearing is currently scheduled for December 2026.

Kevin Franke has maintained that he did not know about the severe abuse taking place at Hildebrandt's home. He was never charged with a crime in connection with the case.

At the time of Ruby's arrest, the couple had been separated for more than a year and Kevin said he had been cut off from his children.

He filed for divorce in November 2023, and their divorce was finalised in March 2025. Kevin was granted full custody of the couple's four minor children, while Ruby was ordered to have no contact with them.

Kevin has since expressed regret over the family's involvement in vlogging. In February 2025, while backing legislation intended to protect children featured in monetised online content, he said putting his children on social media had been "wrong".

Kevin has also since remarried. He married Becca Bevan in November 2025, with his eldest children Shari and Chad attending the wedding.

Following Franke's arrest in 2023, her four minor children were taken into the care of Utah's Division of Child and Family Services.

Kevin was subsequently granted full custody of the four children. Due to their ages and the sensitive circumstances of the case, relatively little information about their current lives has been made public.

Ruby's eldest daughter, Shari, has spoken extensively about growing up in the Franke household. She had already become estranged from her family before her mother's arrest and said afterwards that she had previously tried to alert police and child protection authorities to her concerns.

In January 2025, Shari released her memoir, The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom, detailing her experiences growing up with Ruby.

"Anything less than unbridled enthusiasm would trigger Ruby into a rage," Shari writes in an excerpt published by The Guardian.

Shari has also become an outspoken critic of family vlogging and has campaigned for greater legal protections for children whose lives are monetised online.

"I’ve witnessed the damage of what happens when your life is put online," she told People. "There’s no ethical way to do it."

Chad has also spoken publicly about his family's experiences and appeared alongside Shari and Kevin in The Devil in the Family. Following the documentary's original release in 2025, he defended his father and described the extent to which the family had been manipulated and isolated by Hildebrandt.

The three-part documentary The Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke is currently available on BBC iPlayer. The series features interviews with Ruby's ex-husband Kevin and their two eldest children, Shari and Chad, alongside extensive archive footage from the family's years online.

It traces the Frankes' rise as one of YouTube's best-known family-vlogging households, the family's relationship with Jodi Hildebrandt and the events that culminated in Ruby and Hildebrandt's arrests for aggravated child abuse in August 2023.

Kimberley Bond

Multiplatform Writer

Kimberley Bond is a Multiplatform Writer for Harper’s Bazaar, focusing on the arts, culture, careers and lifestyle. She previously worked as a Features Writer for Cosmopolitan UK, and has bylines at The Telegraph, The Independent and British Vogue among countless others.