Abuse.
It’s endured every day in secret by the people we least expect. Even in the case of a popular YouTube family some of us grew up watching: 8 Passengers. A new documentary series on Tubi explores this case in The Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke.
8 Passengers was a YouTube channel created by Ruby Franke and her husband Kevin Franke, who shared their lives with millions of subscribers. The channel was known for the image of a happy Mormon family and became an internet sensation with videos documenting their everyday lives, family activities, and parenting strategies. Ruby, in particular, became a model and inspiration in the parenting YouTube community because of her parenting advice videos. However, what seemed like a perfect family quickly began to unravel before viewers’ eyes.
Behind the fake smiles, and carefully curated family vlogs, there laid a much darker reality, one that was more unsettling and shocking than any of their viewers would have imagined. It all started with one video, where Ruby Franke confessed to taking her eldest son, Chad’s, bed ‘privileges’ away for 7 months. Her reasoning merely being that he played a prank on one of his siblings. This moment started outrage from viewers and led to accusations of neglect, control, and even emotional abuse. Eventually, Franke deleted the video, but it couldn’t erase what everyone had already seen.
The Devil in the Family
The new documentary, The Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, was released featuring hours of never-before-seen video footage, giving viewers a glimpse into the Franke family’s personal lives. Through interviews with neighbors, Kevin Franke and their two oldest children, the docuseries paints a disturbing portrait of a family broken by a combination of strict rules, manipulation and public performance. The documentary doesn’t merely stick to the abuse itself; it shows the complexities around religious extremism and manipulation, and how it can change perceptions of reality.
The family’s turn to Hildebrandt, a counselor who helped them promote an extreme form of parenting, was the tipping point that ultimately led to the unraveling of their lives. As the docuseries makes it clear, it wasn’t just the physical abuse that was devastating but the deep emotional manipulation that left scars. Ruby and Jodi Hildebrandt were both arrested and later sentenced for their role in the abuse, with Ruby’s parenting strategies coming under intense judgement. As part of a plea deal, they both pled guilty to multiple charges of child abuse after it was revealed that two of the Franke children were found in a malnourished and traumatized state. An interview with police in the documentary reveals that Ruby and Jodi fully believed the two youngest Franke children were possessed and needed to be saved; this shows the intense religious psychosis that they were under.
Through exclusive interviews with Shari and Chad Franke, who are speaking publicly for the first time, Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke sheds light on the experiences of the Franke children. Their voices, alongside the disturbing footage of their everyday lives, offer viewers an inside look at how the pursuit of online fame and the obsessive need to uphold a perfect family image ultimately led to their destruction. It included stories and videos of mental and emotional abuse, as well as religious manipulation. The series serves as a reminder of the dangers of living life for the camera, and is something that everyone, whether old or young, can benefit from watching.
