Kevin Franke
Appearances
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
You're going to have to go find your shorts. Oh, did you see the socks you threw at the side of the garden? And you are not going anywhere unless you pick up your junk. You've got crops thrown all right now. So you see now I'm using bad language. That's how bad of a mood I'm in. You get your socks picked up and don't you leave your stuff out anymore. Right over there.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Run and go pick them up and then give me 10 pushups. Put them in your pocket so you can take them down to the hamper and drop and give me 10. Put your hands straight out. They're in. They're not supposed to be out. Shape your hands forward. There you go. One, two, down further, bring your butt down.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
p program where he's going to spend the next eight to ten weeks living in the um anasazi desert yeah the desert mountains of arizona so you're probably wondering what did you do what okay let's we're not even going to entertain that stuff but it's it's an accumulation of things over years well before we ever started youtubing or well before we ever got into social media
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
And the things that we show and share and the things that many of you are criticizing and calling are actually things that mental health professionals have counseled us to do.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Weird things started happening. Ruby said the children were demonically possessed.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
No, none of them.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Over a year. I've been in a separation. From who? From my wife and family. What's your wife's name? Ruby. Ruby? When was the last time you saw Ruby?
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
The 18th of this month, we met to, she requested me to sign over vehicles or the titles to the vehicles, the vehicle that she drives that were all in my name.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
The day that I moved out. 22 years.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Um, yeah, I'm not going to answer that question.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
She is a therapist and life coach. Do you respect her?
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
At least the next 72 hours. They're in observation. They're being watched.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
And all without legal representation. Yeah, all right, I get it. But I love that way. I trust that way. And so, I mean, this feels like getting run over by a speed truck while you're sharing with me today. Yeah, I can tell you're caught. you realize that I have a picture of my family on my wall. And I look at it every day. And I work. I work every day.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
So I can get back to my family and say to my family, everything you're sharing to me just sounds like a made-up story. I have no idea what you're talking about. Like,
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
So we went down to Jody's house in May of 2021. That was the first time I had ever been there. And it blew my mind. I'm sure you have walked in there and gone, how does a therapist live like this? It doesn't really make sense to me. But we were there and she opened up and talked about her struggles and what was going on. And I gotta say, I'm a smart guy. I'm an engineer.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
I've designed and helped build some really big stuff. I'm a college professor. I can't explain some of the stuff that happened while we were there. like crashes in the basement while we were talking upstairs and plates like in the kitchen just flying off by themselves, like full speed smashing on the wall and falling to the floor by themselves.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
I can't explain it, but I saw it with my own eyes and I don't have any... way to explain it other than there's some crazy going on ruby was convinced that we could intervene and help jody i didn't want a thing to do with it i tried to like get the bishop involved and say hey go to like the priesthood and the church and all that stuff just go to your support network but
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Ruby continued to be like, no, we can help. Like she doesn't want that. Could you imagine like what would happen to her reputation of this got out and stuff? Let's help her.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
So we went down like a couple more times between May and August, but it reached the point where in August, her bishop at the time, a guy who's down there in Kayenta named Scott Galbraith, he's not our bishop anymore, but I mean, he was going over there like every night and he'd be there for like four hours. Yeah, I'm fighting evil spirits. I'm casting demons out and crazy stuff going on.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
And finally, he got to the point where he's like, I can't do this anymore. There needs to be some sort of resolution. It was at that point that they said, why don't you take her up to your house? And I was like, oh, hell no, I don't want to. I was beaten over the head with it. Like, that's really insensitive. You know, she's done so much to help our family.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
And you're you're being selfish and she has needs. And come on, like, it won't be for long. And so I relented and I was like, OK, actually, you know, this could kind of be fun. Let's just make it fun. And we'll like she needs a vacation. So we'll just go take drives up the canyon and stuff like that. And it turned into just a crazy house.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
The moment she showed up in my house, just the weirdest crap started happening. Lights turning on and off. Sounds of people walking in walls. Sounds like footprints going up walls and across the ceiling. Stuff floating around. It was just weird. And I hated it. And I became the resident exorcist. That was the title I came up with myself. I thought it was kind of funny.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
But it was my job to go and give her blessings whenever she started to go into a trance and go into possession. Which started to be a lot. And Ruby would go up and check on her. It started like... for every four hours a night, and then it moved every two hours a night and moved every hour at night. And then at some point, Ruby said, You know what? I'm just going to start sleeping in there.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
And if I need you, I'll come down and get you. That's kind of weird, but OK. And and that was that they started sleeping in the same bed and Then she started having like trances and stuff, I would say probably September, where she believed that she was going to heaven and seeing God and Jesus and talking with them. And she would get together with Pam Botcher.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Ruby, Pam, and Jody would get together and do these interventions. that's what they call them and so they just go up and lock themselves in a room for four or five hours and then they'd come out and they'd all just be on cloud nine and and ruby would share with me like she had this amazing vision and i wrote it and recorded it all down and we have a work to do from god and
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
and you're part of it, and the bishop's part of it, and we're all part of bringing all this stuff to the world. And it continued like that until I wanted to move on with life. And I would call it dragging my heels, so that was around October.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Jody flipped out because during one intervention, Chad was in the backyard with a bunch of friends, and it was my job to keep all the kids contained in the basement watching movies or playing video games. I took the dog on a walk and I thought they were done, but they weren't done. And Chad had all his high school friends over in the backyard. Jody flipped out.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
She was ready to come back to Ivan's on her own that night. And Ruby and Pam talked her into staying. But that was the first night where Ruby said, I want a separation from you. And it was an in-home separation. And so it was... It was hard. Basically, there were all these rules now placed on me, like... I could leave when I wanted, but I couldn't come back until Ruby gave me permission.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
I couldn't come into the kitchen to eat until Ruby gave me permission. And the upstairs where Jody roamed was completely offline. I couldn't go upstairs anymore in my own house. And there would be, Ruby would dictate all of the terms of how our interactions would be, when we would talk, And that was hard. And it was during that time that I really became, I would say, dependent upon Ruby.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Like, if she said a kind word to me, like, my whole day was made, right? And so that separation continued all the way up until... the holidays, maybe the last week of December, first week of January. And then Ruby ended that separation. Jody went home the second week of January. But by that time, Ruby, Pam, and Jody were completely determined to do this work that they I thought it was crazy.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Like, I thought it was just batshit crazy. Like, Ruby, you have a reputation, you have a multimillion dollar business, you have a brand and you are just giving it away. She wanted to legally like work with Jody's attorney to basically give Jody eight passengers and and become an employee of Connections So basically the contract was Ruby gives Jody everything and Ruby gets nothing in return.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Our manager, our YouTube manager at the time was like, red flags, red flags. Like, I don't know how to tell you she is scamming you. Ruby fired him. and i was like i believe our manager i think he's right and ruby started threatening me with another separation and just like this isn't about money this is about doing god's work and
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
So we continued in that dynamic for the next six or seven months until she went on a trip with Jody and Pam down to Arizona. And I think they like, when I read her journal that she went into Mexico or something and bought drugs or something like prescription drugs for the emergency kits.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
When she came back from that trip, before she even brought the bags into the house, she pulled me in and said, I want to talk with you. And that's when she asked me to leave. And that was July 20th, 2022.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
There's presents for mom. It's Mother's Day. Well, we love mom.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Just to stick it to their teachers or to stick it to their parents or family.
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
That's the kind of behavior that we're hoping this program can help Chad correct. we're not thinking that anyone's going to be like fixed or corrected but like reveal it to him yeah that's a good way to say it yeah because no one can fix anybody a person has to choose if they're going to make changes in their lives and so
Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
I think this experience will reveal Chad and everyone else who's out there to themselves and they can learn to better themselves or just stay in the mud.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
I have three statements to read. One is my own, and two are statements that were prepared and written by two of my minor children at their request, and I will be reading them verbatim to you. I'd like to also clarify that these statements went through the process of approval in the juvenile court, and the judge agreed that these statements could and should be read to this committee.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
My name is Kevin Franke. I am the father of Sherry Franke and the former husband of Ruby Franke. I am a former family vlogger who is intimately familiar with the world of family content creation on social media. I have my own story and journey to share when I'm ready, but obviously now is neither the time nor the place to do that. Today, I want to be direct and clear.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
Vlogging my family, putting my children into public social media was wrong, and I regret it every day. Children cannot give informed consent to be filmed on social media, period. If we as adults cannot understand the emotional and psychological impacts of sharing our lives to millions of strangers online, how can we expect our children to understand them?
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
Few, if any, legal protections currently exist for those children, and I believe it's time to change that. I support Representative Owens' bill, and I believe it to be a great first step towards protecting child influencers here in the state of Utah. And there is much more to do in the future.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
The things that you see that are concerning in the documentary, such as the sternness, the yelling at the kids to get them to comply, and the filming, and those kinds of things, I think a lot of people that aren't familiar with family content creation would look at that and go, that's horrible. That's abusive. And it is abusive.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
But what I want people to understand is that was not unique to our family.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
As far as the things like sleeping on a beanbag, removing Chad from sports teams and things, all of those directives came from Jody, the licensed director. mental health counselor. I definitely voiced my opposition and concern, and it was always flipped back onto me of saying, well, you know, this is why your children are disobedient.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
This is why you're having problems with your children, because you just enable them all the time. You're the problem, Kevin.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
A lot of the physical violence that was described was hidden and kept from me. I didn't even know that those things happened. And I think Ruby was really careful to hide a lot of that from me.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
There's so many culturalisms today that are being just promoted and celebrated, and taught from the highest towers in every part of the land. And some of these parenting-isms, these cultural-isms that have contaminated parenting are things like beliefs that it's my job to make my kids happy.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
It's my job to give my child a magical childhood. It's my job to make my children smile and laugh. It's my job to make my children successful. It's my job to prevent my children from having pain, right? All of these, they all come from the same place. And it all comes from this belief, this distorted belief that I can measure my worth as an individual by how I parent.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
And I can judge how good of a parent I am by how my children turn out. And there is not a greater untruth than that. That leads to so much pain. That leads to so much resentment on the part of the parent to the child and the part of the child to the parent.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
Yeah, we focused a lot and then had a great discussion with the men here about the principles of self-reliance and about responsibility and being able to not run away from responsibility, but to embrace it and accept it because those responsibilities are exactly what will lead you to greater connection and happiness.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
The bottom line is that I was choosing to trust a licensed professional mental health counselor and my wife, and they gave some terrible counsel.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
Yes. Explain to me again why this was not robbery.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
Okay. I'll have to do some more research on that. You're welcome to do that if you want to follow up with our techniques yourself. Okay.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
I think it's relatively easy for somebody out there who's armchairing this and looking at this experience going, well, why didn't he just do that? I would have done that. If it was day number one and Jodi came to me and said, yeah, you're selfish. You need to go into separation and repent. I would have told her to take a hike. I would have been like, you're crazy. And I did. I did say that.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
in the first time I was introduced to Jody's program. But you have to remember, and these individuals have to remember, that this was now, you know, I was two and a half years in this program now, and Jody doesn't start from day one saying stuff like that. She gets her hooks into you and slowly begins to indoctrinate you and condition you to believe things about yourself and to
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
willingly give power to other people because you come to believe that you yourself aren't capable of making good decisions. When that was suggested to me after all of that indoctrinating and conditioning, at the time, it seemed like, oh, you're right, okay. But again, I understand for somebody who wasn't in it, that it would seem strange.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
There was that coercion and flipping it back onto me, the gaslighting, that I was like, okay, well, maybe I am wrong. Maybe this is the right way to parent.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
And I have regret, and I wish that I hadn't done those things. Do you still love her? I do. I don't think I'll ever stop loving her. Does that mean that I want to let her back into my life, let her back into my kids' lives? Absolutely not.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
Choosing to trust a licensed professional mental health counselor and my wife, and they gave some terrible counsel. And I have regrets and I wish that I hadn't done those things. Do you still love her? I do. I don't think I'll ever stop loving her. Does that mean that I want to let her back into my life, let her back into my kids' lives? Absolutely not.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
I feel like my mom used me for money.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
There is real danger.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
This really is a story of love.
Serialously with Annie Elise
250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!
My wife, Ruby's sole ambition was to be seen as the perfect mom.