Why Shari Franke Is Speaking Out Against Family Vlogging After Surviving Mom’s Abuse: ‘No Ethical Way to Do It’ (Exclusive)

Shari Franke, the eldest of Utah-based YouTube vlogger Ruby Franke’s children, will publish her memoir, My Mother’s House: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedomthrough Gallery Books on January 7. The memoir comes after Ruby, along with therapist Jodi Hilderbrandt, were arrested for aggravated child abuse in 2023 and received four consecutive prison terms ranging from one to 15 years in February 2024. Now Shari is telling her story, as well as her experiences at the Franke house , for an important reason.

For more on Shari Franke, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.“I’ve witnessed the damage of what happens when your life is put online,” Shari, 21, tells PEOPLE in a story in this week’s print edition. “There is no ethical way to do it.”

‘My Mother’s House: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom’ by Shari Franke.

Ruby and her husband Kevin rose to fame when they launched the 8Passengers YouTube channel in 2015. The channel, which cataloged the everyday life of the family, had 2.5 million subscribers.

Shari says Ruby was “never warm or loving” as a mother, but she initially viewed her mother’s bribery to share private moments on camera as a “fair trade-off.” As she got older, however, she became uncomfortable with some of the content. “I was 18 and we were bra shopping and she was filming it,” says Shari. “I thought, ‘This is kind of weird and inappropriate.'” Followers of the YouTube channel also began criticizing Ruby’s questionable behavior in videos by 2020, which “mislead Ruby deeper,” Shari writes in the memoir.

Shari Franke Confronts Ruby Franke After Calling Child Protective Services: ‘I Never Hated You, Mom’ (Exclusive)

In 2018, Ruby linked up with Jodi Hilderbrandt, a former sex therapist and founder of the faith-based social network ConneXions. Hilderbrandt became a family therapist and advocated extreme parental discipline in the home. Not long after, Ruby disowned Shari, who also asked Kevin and son Chad to move out of the house. Ruby’s punishments evolved into “grand gestures and extended periods of deprivation,” says Shari. By the time she left for college at Brigham Young University, Shari had become incredibly concerned about the safety of her siblings who remained at home. She even called the Utah Division of Child and Family Services, although no action was taken after a welfare check.

Ruby and Kevin Franke and their children, whose faces have been blurred to protect their privacy.

“They are old enough to take care of themselves. This is about you, Shari. Your jealousy, your need for attention’, Shari recalls her mother’s words in her memoirs. In 2023, during her junior year of college, Shari received a call from a neighbor telling her that police had surrounded her mother’s Springville, Utah home. On August 30, 2023, Ruby and Hildbrandt were arrested after Shari’s 12-year-old brother, Russell, asked a neighbor to call the police after escaping through a window from Hildebrandt’s home in Ivins, Utah. Russell was malnourished, had binding marks and wounds on his wrists, as well as duct tape on his ankles. His sister Eve, 10, was also found malnourished in the home. “My biggest priority was just making sure the kids were alive,” Shari says. “As long as they were alive, obviously that’s when I knew things were going to be okay in the end.”

Shari Frank.

MANICA PROJECT

Today, Shari is looking forward. She is a political science major who will graduate in 2025, has taken up a new hobby of rock climbing, and is the proud owner of her cat, Muppet. Shari is also in therapy and beginning to mend her relationship with her father, who has filed for custody of Franke’s younger siblings (Shari now refuses to talk about their lives to protect their privacy). She even got engaged recently, which she announced with a famous post on Instagram.

However, as Shari shared this news, she also noted that “this is the end of me sharing my private life.” She explained: “For so long they took away my voice and freedom of choice, and now I gave in. I will not talk about my wedding, future husband or future children.”My Mother’s House: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom will be released on January 7th and is available for pre-order now, wherever books are sold.

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Source: HIS Education