Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing

YouTube mum Ruby Franke was handed her prison sentence this week, six months after being arrested.

The 42-year-old pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse in December 2023 along with her business partner and mental health counsellor, Jodi Hildebrandt, 54.

Franke’s 12-year-old son escaped through a window in Hildebrandt’s house, alerting a neighbour to get help as he was covered in lacerations and had duct tape around his ankles and wrists, according to police.

His siblings were found in a similar state by the authorities.

Before her conviction, Franke, revealed the full extent of her crimes in her plea deal, admitting to holding her son’s underwater, kicking him while wearing boots, and subjecting him to physical labour in the sun with little food or water.

Making a name for herself with her YouTube channel, which amassed over two and a half million subscribers at its peak, Franke apologised to her children in court after her sentence, saying: “I will never stop crying for hurting your tender souls.”

YouTube/moms_of_truth

Both mothers were given four separate prison sentences for one to 15 years, with the length of each sentence up to Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.

However, due to Utah law, this cannot exceed 30 years.

Following her conviction, one of Franke’s older children, Chad Franke, appeared in a TikTok with his girlfriend, seemingly taking a dig at the situation.

In the clip, which was deleted and has since been reposted on another account, the couple are dancing to a song.

When the camera is on his significant other, the text overlay reads: “You’d love my mom!”

But when it is pointed at him, it says: “My moms in prison.”

According to the Daily Mail, the original video was posted three days before his mum’s sentencing.

Viewers of the viral clip let their opinions be known in the comments below.

TikTok/@the_internet_is_foreverr

One user commented: “He is justifiably hurt. It must have felt empowering to make this. Wishing Chad and his siblings healing from severe trauma.”

Another showed their support, saying: “They haven’t had friends in many years. I get happy seeing them with friends. Let alone gf/bf to take special care of them. Chad is happy bcuz his siblings didn’t deserve that.”

If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000, 10am-8pm Monday to Friday. If you are a child seeking advice and support, call Childline for free on 0800 1111, 24/7.

Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing

The husband of YouTube mum Ruby Franke was in court to witnesses a judge hand her the maximum prison sentence for child abuse.

The mother-of-six, from the US, became a popular figure on YouTube after sharing parental advice content to millions of people, alongside her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt.

Earlier this week, Franke, 42, and Hildebrandt, 54, both pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse for trying to convince Franke’s two youngest children that they were ‘evil and possessed’ and needed to be punished.

YouTube/moms_of_truth

The pair were arrested last August at Hildebrandt’s house in Utah, after Franke’s 12-year-old son escaped through a window and asked a neighbour to call the police.

The boy, who was covered in wounds and had duct tape around his ankles and wrists, told the St George Police Department that Hildebrandt had put ropes on his limbs and used cayenne pepper and honey to dress his cuts.

State prosecuting attorney Eric Clarke said the environment the children were kept in was like ‘a concentration camp-like setting’.

Franke admitted in her plea deal to kicking her son while wearing boots, holding his head under water and closing off his mouth and nose with her hands.

YouTube/ConneXions Classroom

Franke and her husband Kevin Franke launched 8 Passengers on YouTube back in 2015, racking up a large following as they documented their experiences of raising children.

She later began working with Hildebrandt’s counselling company, ConneXions Classroom, offering parenting seminars, while starting another YouTube channel.

“Kevin, my husband of more than 23 years. You are the love of my life. [I’m] so sorry to leave to you to finish what we both started together,” she said of her husband in her statement.

As the words were read out, Kevin and his two oldest children didn’t sit behind Franke in the courtroom, and it appears they didn’t even look at her when she spoke.

“The ending of our marriage is a tragedy. And you are wrapped around my heart in a knot I’ll never be able to undo,” she continued.

“To my babies; my six little chicks – you are a part of me.

“I will – I will never stop crying for hurting your tender souls.

“You are so precious to me, I’m sorry.

“My choice to live in fear of the world has created a great vulnerability and a blind spot for me – where I have broken hearts, and I’ve caused people to suffer and I have betrayed sacred trust.

“Watching my community respond to my charges with justice and mercy and grace and love is all the more evidence to me of how wrong I’ve been.

“This world is full of really good people.

“And finally, I’m sorry for twisting God’s word and distorting His doctrines.”

If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000, 10am-8pm Monday to Friday. If you are a child seeking advice and support, call Childline for free on 0800 1111, 24/7.

There’s nothing like making friends with someone who you feel like you’ve known your whole life. You know, when you just click?

The kind of friendship where the ‘brother from another mother’ or ‘sister from another mister’ saying kicks in.

And these two men were best friends for 60 years before they made a life-changing discovery that changed that phrase entirely.

Alan Robinson and Walter MacFarlane had first become mates when played football together at prep school in Hawaii. But despite living less than 10 miles apart for most of their lives, it wasn’t until 2017 when they realised how close they really are.

The pair had been friends for decades. (Steve TV/YouTube)

While Robinson was adopted, MacFarlane never knew his father and his daughter, Cindy, really wanted to help him find out about him.

So, he used a DNA test to find out about his ancestry and found a match.

Turns out, someone had identical X chromosomes with MacFarlane, a user named Robi737.

Cindy said on Steve TV there were ‘over a thousand DNA matches’ and when she sought out the highest match, it listed Robi737 as ‘close family or sibling’.

“And my mum said to tell dad to call uncle Alan because he flew 737s as a pilot for Aloha Airlines and everyone called him Robbie as a nickname,” she explained.

But yep, you guessed it, Robi737 was in fact the username of Robinson on the site.

“When we got the results back it was discovered that Alan wasn’t only my best friend, he was my brother,” he said.

Really completing the saying, it turns out the pair do in fact share the same birth mother.

The pair told Sky News it had been an ‘overwhelming experience’ calling it the ‘best Christmas present’ at the time.

“I had a younger brother that I lost when he was 19, so I never had nieces or nephews. I thought I’ll never know my birth mother, I’ll never have any nieces or nephews,” Robinson explained.

And despite MacFarlane occasionally thinking they did look ‘a little bit’ alike, it never crossed either man’s mind that they may be related.

When they told their families, they told Steve TV there wasn’t ‘a dry eye in the whole place’.

Well, friends for 60 years but brothers for life it turns out. Now, that is an emotional one.

Eminem’s daughter Hailie Jade has shared a glimpse into her childhood, explaining the one thing she never did while she was growing up.

Hailie, 28, recently launched her own podcast, Just A Little Shady.

In the first episode, she opened up about her time at high school, and how growing up in a famous family impacted her behaviour.

Instagram/@hailiejade

Hailie was born back in 1995, when Eminem was in his early twenties.

The rapper went on to struggle with drugs and alcohol, and has since opened up about just how bad things became in the early noughties.

After his first admission to rehab in 2005, Eminem explained that he nearly overdosed after taking some blue pills, not knowing what they actually contained.

It turns out he’d taken methadone, which is a man-made opioid. The amount he consumed was equivalent to ‘four bags of heroin’.

“My doctor told me the amount of methadone I’d taken was equivalent to shooting up four bags of heroin,” he told VIBE magazine.

“I probably wouldn’t have taken it. But as bad as I was back then, I can’t even say 100 percent for sure.”

It’s not clear whether Eminem’s struggles with substance abuse impacted Hailie, but the podcast host explained how she never wanted to even be associated with anyone who was drinking as a teen.

“I didn’t drink or go to parties, everyone was doing that, but I didn’t. I was so naive to all of it,” she said.

“I remember going to a football game, it was freezing cold outside, everyone was having the time of their lives, and I was like ‘am I missing something?’

“One of my friends came up to me and was talking right in my face, and I was like, ‘you’re drinking’. Literally so appalled. It hit me in that moment.

“I thought that even being associated with anyone there that was drinking I was gonna get in trouble.”

Hailie explained that she never actually got in trouble growing up, or ever did anything to warrant being told off.

“I was so straight and narrow,” she added.

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Hailie, who co-hosts the podcast with her friend Brittany Ednie, also recalled a time when she invited her friend on to her dad’s tour bus, thinking it was something everyone’s dad had.

“I feel like I vividly remember being in your kitchen and you were like ‘do you want to come on the tour bus?” said Brittany.

“I thought it was normal!” Hailie added.

Eminem also has two other children – Stevie Laine, 21 and Alaina Marie, 30, who are both adopted by the rapper.