Kevin Franke, the estranged husband of Ruby Franke, a Utah parenting blogger and convicted child abuser, expressed his “regrets” about his handling of his wife’s decline into chaos.
Ruby Franke, a 43-year-old mother of six, and Jodi Hildebrandt, a 55-year-old mother of two, operated a joint YouTube channel focusing on parenting and lifestyle known as ConneXions Classrooms. They were apprehended and pleaded guilty to four out of six counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse in a St. George courtroom in December 2023.
“The bottom line is: I made the choice to trust a licensed mental health counselor and my wife, and unfortunately, the guidance they provided was harmful. I have regrets. I wish I had not followed through with those actions,” Kevin Franke stated to “Good Morning America” during an interview broadcast on Tuesday morning.
Ruby and Hildebrandt had partnered to create a joint parenting and lifestyle vlog, or video blog, called ConneXions Classrooms that sold counseling sessions, packages and retreats ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.
Most families in the area were aware that Franke had a YouTube channel called 8Passengers, her neighbor told Fox News Digital. When she started another vlog called “Moms of Truth”/ ConneXions on Facebook with Hildebrandt, “a few” neighbors became “very concerned” with the content, the neighbor said. (Moms of Truth/ Instagram)
“It was so outlandish to me that it had to have been fabricated,” Kevin Franke told “GMA” when asked about his initial reaction to his wife’s arrest.
Franke and Hildebrandt were both sentenced to serve four consecutive terms between a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of 60 years in prison.
Now, Kevin is warning of the dangers of social media after his family’s once-private life was put under a microscope.Â
Ruby Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, were sentenced to prison in Utah for child abuse. (Instagram/ moms_of_truth)
“There is real danger when you place yourself, or your family, your children, out onto public social media,” he told “GMA.”
In dozens of YouTube videos and social media posts, Franke and Hildebrandt coached parents in calm voices from a living room couch on how to raise their children in “truth.” In a video posted just before their arrests, Hildebrandt said pain can be a good thing for children of a certain age.
The case has prompted discussions about how parenting and lifestyle blogs often present only a sliver of a person’s or family’s reality, as well as children’s rights to their own privacy if their parent is a social media star.
