The son of Ruby Franke, the YouTuber behind the 8Passengers channel, has broken his silence nearly two years after his mother was sentenced to a potential 60-year prison term for severe child abuse.
Chad Franke, now 20, is revealing his perspective through a series of TikTok videos where he reads from his 2023 diary entries. These entries were penned a year before his mother received her extensive prison sentence in a Utah court, as reported by People.
In the first video, Chad introduces himself, saying, “Hi, my name is Chad, and there was a time when I was very brainwashed. I’m not exaggerating. You can search for me online.”
Chad explains that although many of his TikTok followers have encouraged him to “write a book about my story,” he doubts his writing skills and prefers to personally narrate his experiences rather than having someone else convey them.
The downfall of Ruby Franke and her associate Jodi Hildebrandt resulted in both friends and business partners ending up behind bars. (Instagram/@moms_of_truth)
“Then I realized I had already chronicled my story,” Chad recalls, referring to a journal he kept daily during that significant time in his life.
“And to show you guys how real it was for every single day of the year, I will go back to 2023, two years ago, and read every single journal entry that I wrote,” he added.
In the second video installment, Chad went on to read an entry dated Jan. 22, 2023, detailing how he visited church with his roommates before playing Mario Kart, and later cooking “funeral potatoes.”
Chad Franke discusses his relationship with his mother, Ruby Franke, in Hulu’s “The Devil in the Family” documentary series. (Hulu)
“And then I called Mom,” Chad said.
“We talked for two hours about removing lust. It’s a little more complicated and difficult than I thought,” he read, adding that he was working as a lifeguard at the time.
“Being at the pool has many opportunities to show God I will not lust anymore,” he continued, before listing a series of goals he wanted to accomplish within the upcoming week, including, “Scripture study, scripture notes, traveling to work, finishing and starting a finance book, finish a 12-hour Python coding course, and keep on cooking.”
Ruby Franke pleaded guilty to four of six counts of aggravated child abuse. (Sheldon Demke/ St. George News/ Pool)
Chad then addressed his viewers to clarify his views regarding religion and his situation at the time the entry was written.
“I want to make it very clear that not all of this is bad,” he said. “Scripture study, not bad. Cooking, obviously not bad. And talking to my brainwashed mom at the time, also not bad.”
“This is just me giving my story. This isn’t me saying everything is bad.”
In a third video posted to TikTok, Chad shared another journal entry from the following day in 2023, in which he mulled over the concept of “lust” and his job as a lifeguard at a local pool.
“Being a lifeguard, I just watch people’s choices over and over,” he wrote. “I have two opportunities to either feel compassion or lust. It is difficult to rid lust after a lifetime of feeding it.”
“But at the pool, I have more and more chances to evidence, I will not lust. It will take more practice. And I have not spoken the lustful language or shared lustful comments. It is all immature and I need and want to grow into a hard-working and principled man. I need to be disciplined.”
Franke earned an impressive online following in 2015 by posting videos of her children – Chad, Julie, Abby, Russell, Shari and Eve – on her family’s YouTube channel, titled 8Passengers. The Utah blogger quickly rose to fame, earning over two million followers on her platform.
However, the popularity of the family’s YouTube channel began to fall after Chad mentioned in a video that he had been forced to sleep on a beanbag chair for several months as punishment.
Seven years later, Franke began partnering with controversial family therapist Jodi Hildebrandt on a podcast and joint-Instagram account, “Moms of Truth,” where the pair shared intense and often-abusive parenting tactics.
Hildebrandt soon became a central figure in the Franke family’s lives, and eventually moved in with the family after Shari, Franke’s oldest child, left for college.
In 2023, Utah authorities arrested both Franke and Hildebrandt on charges of abusing Franke’s two youngest children, a 9-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy.
Authorities became aware of the abuse after Franke’s son fled Hildebrandt’s home and reached a neighbor, who called 911 to report the malnourished boy had duct tape on his wrists and ankles.
The pair were arrested in August 2023 and subsequently pleaded guilty to child abuse in December 2023. Both Franke and Hildebrandt were sentenced to four consecutive terms between a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of 60 years in prison in February 2024.
