‘Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke’ isn’t the PR damage control Kevin Franke thinks it is
If Kevin Franke thought Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke would rehab his public image, he was badly mistaken.
Franke is the estranged husband of Ruby Franke, who is serving up to 30 years in prison for aggravated child abuse. Before her arrest, he and Ruby found YouTube fame by vlogging the daily lives of their six children for their channel 8 Passengers. At its height, the channel had over 1 million subscribers, garnering them up to $100,000 monthly. Since the arrest, Franke has filed for divorce from Ruby, applied for custody of his minor children, and joined his oldest daughter, Shari Franke, in advocating against family vlogging. However, many believe he also was responsible for the abuse his younger children suffered. Upon Ruby’s arrest, it was revealed Franke had abandoned his children and hadn’t seen or spoken to them for a year.
During his press tour before the docuseries, Franke insisted it would provide answers, claiming it was his way of ” taking control” of his story and “speaking it in” his “own words.” However, this statement raises concerns because it’s not just his story. It’s also the story of his six children, two of whom suffered unimaginable abuse and deserve to have time to heal without their story being dredged up in a documentary every couple of months. Yet, he forged ahead with the docuseries, even handing the producers over 1,000 hours of unseen YouTube footage, some of which made it into the final cut. Even though the minor children’s faces are blurred, it provides even further insight into their lives, which have been filmed and reported on relentlessly for nearly a decade. Franke did all this to clear his name, but the docuseries doesn’t even do that.
The Fall of Ruby Franke doesn’t do Kevin Franke any favors
Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke raises more questions than answers about Franke. In regards to the abandonment, he essentially claims brainwashing. For the most part, he points the finger at Ruby and her therapist, Jodi Hildebrandt. He pins the family vlogging on Ruby while blaming Hildebrandt for the most extreme abuse and his abandonment. Franke spins quite the wild tale, insisting that Hildebrandt tricked him into believing that evil spirits possessed her to get into the Franke’s home and closer to Ruby. He also insists he thought cutting contact with his family, blocking his oldest daughter from texting him and living alone would help him regain his family. It was only after he learned of the abuse that he realized he was “lied to.”
However, there are a lot of things that don’t add up. Franke claims brainwashing while also acknowledging he witnessed the red flags piling up. He recalled how, after the first ConneXions meeting, he told Ruby, “This is a cult.” Not only that but as a college professor, it’s incredibly strange how he supposedly fell for Hildebrandt’s theatrics, such as her feigned possession and supposed handprint on her window that looked like a simple smudge. Meanwhile, when he was in isolation, he had neighbors reaching out to him, telling him the police were outside his home after reports the children were left alone for days. In response, he blocked them. When Shari tried to reach out to him for help, he blocked her, too.
When questioned about how his absence and refusal to stop the “madness” contributed to the abuse, Franke never straight-up owns it. He suggests he can’t “dwell” on the details because it will “eat” him alive or that he’d change things if he could go back in time. There’s never a straightforward acknowledgment that his actions directly endangered his children. He never even uses his time on screen to apologize to them. Franke gives so many excuses and rarely takes accountability for the fact that he was the only person who could have prevented the abuse, yet he chose to abandon his kids. He can’t feign oblivion for what was happening when he was getting texts about police at his home. Also, he can’t just use the brainwashing excuse. If he can claim brainwashing clears his responsibility, then the same could be said of Ruby. We must acknowledge that brainwashing played a role in this story, but it doesn’t absolve anyone of wrongdoing.
Docuseries suggests Kevin Franke was aware of abuse
Franke also claims not to have witnessed any abuse, but the docuseries disproves this by using the never-before-seen footage to demonstrate Ruby’s abuse started long before Franke moved out. In her memoir and the docuseries, Shari alleges Ruby was, indeed, abusive before Hildebrandt.
At one point, Franke vaguely acknowledged the pre-Hildebrandt abuse, suggesting there were “dark” things that went on unbeknownst to him. However, the docuseries proves his folly as it reveals he’s the person behind the camera in multiple clips where Ruby screams at, verbally abuses, and even roughly grabs and pushes the face of her youngest child. Shari also recalls an alarming tale where she helped her brother Chad “clean blood off the wall” after a brutal beating. Chad, who also participated in the docuseries, confirmed that Ruby would “whip” him and use other methods that go beyond discipline. How would Franke not know these things? He clearly knew some of the abuse was going on and did nothing about it. Even if he didn’t know the details, that’s just inexcusable absent parenting not to know that your children are getting brutally beaten while you’re at work.
It’s also important to acknowledge the double standard here and how different things would be if Franke were a woman. It’s very common for a woman to be blamed if her partner abuses their children. These women aren’t just blamed by the public and social media users. There are far more cases of women facing actual charges over failure to act and protect their children than men. Even in cases where the woman may be a victim herself, the blame is frequently placed on her. Yet, Franke can claim, “I didn’t know,” and many accept it without question. The simple acceptance of Franke’s actions further promotes this idea that women are expected to protect their children, but men are not.
Kevin Franke says he still loves Ruby
Perhaps the most shocking part of Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke is when Franke admits to still loving Ruby. A producer asks, “Do you still love her?” He responds, “Definitely.” The producer presses further, “Even though she abused the kids?” His response is, “Oh yeah.” It’s such a harmful and detrimental thing to say when he has six children who are still trying to heal from immense shame and trauma. The problem isn’t that Franke loves her. I admit we can’t know what being in his shoes is like. The problem is that he said it out loud in a docuseries his children can see. It’s a feeling that he doesn’t need to voice even if he has it. It can’t do anything besides cause pain. His children need to know he’s on their side and that they’re more important than his past relationship with his wife.
He would only need to voice that thought to get this message across to Ruby and try to validate these feelings. It goes far deeper than his willingness to speak his private thoughts as if they were more important than his children’s feelings. He also put his desire to share his story and rehab his image above his children with his entire participation in the docuseries. One can understand Franke wanting to “control” his own story and take charge of the narrative, but is it worth doing at the expense of his children? The docuseries replayed private BTS footage of Ruby verbally and physically abusing the children. It replayed police cam footage when the youngest son escaped from Hildebrandt’s house, and they went to search the home for the other children. These are things that the children don’t need to relive. They don’t need these things to be blaring on every social media channel and the TV in the homes of their friends, family members, and teachers.
It’s more important that the children get a chance to move on from their trauma than that Franke gets to tell his story, which is basically just him excusing abandonment and neglect. The fact that he put himself above the healing and privacy of his children tells us far more about him than the docuseries or press tour that he’s presumably profiting from.
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