Ruby Franke's Son Defends His Dad on Snapchat After Release of Hulu Docuseries: 'I Hope Everyone Will Get It'

Former YouTube star Ruby Franke’s oldest son, Chad Franke, says on social media that he hopes “everyone will get it” after watching the new Hulu docuseries about the downfall of his once-wholesome-seeming family.

On Thursday, Feb. 27, the three-part docuseries, Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke debuted on Hulu.

It features in-depth interviews with Chad, 20, his dad, Kevin Franke, 46, and his older sister, Shari Franke, 21, who open up to director Olly Lambert about their Mormon family’s rise to social media fame with Ruby’s YouTube channel “8 Passengers” — and what happened when the family fell under the influence of controversial family therapist Jodi Hildebrandt.

In 2023, Ruby, 43, and Hildebrandt were arrested and charged with abusing two of Ruby and Kevin’s younger children. After pleading guilty to felony child abuse, they were convicted in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to up to 30 years in prison each.

On the day of the premiere, Chad asked his Snapchat followers: “Thoughts on the series?”

One follower replied, “I think it shows how your dad was never the problem and that he was brainwashed. All he wanted was his family back.”

Chad replied, “Thank you, I hope everyone will get it.”

In another Snapchat post, Chad wrote, “People don’t realize how good jodi [Hildebrandt] was at manipulating.”

Hildebrandt brought the entire Franke family under her influence — starting with Ruby, when the mother asked Hildebrandt to counsel Chad when he was a teenager.

Hildebrandt, Kevin told PEOPLE in an exclusive interview, was able to wield such influence over the family because she “gets her hooks into you, and slowly begins to indoctrinate you and condition you to believe things about yourself, and to willingly give power to other people.”

Kevin added, “You come to believe that you yourself aren’t capable of making good decisions.”

In 2022, at Hildebrandt’s direction, Ruby asked Kevin — and then Chad — to move out of the family home for a year and refrain from contacting her or the other children, purportedly to help improve their relationships with the family.

“We were both really indoctrinated that we needed complete isolation in order to heal,” said Kevin. 

In the series, Kevin says he went along with this because he wanted his family back.

“That was my motive and my purpose every single day,” he told PEOPLE.

Chad added, “I was in almost the exact same boat as my dad. I was also required to move out of the house and never contact my siblings, never go back home.”

As his then-trusted therapist, Hildebrandt “wanted me to live a very physically and mentally straining life while I was out there,” Chad told PEOPLE. “That was her mindset when it came to repentance and changing: put yourself through as much pain as possible. So that was a really hard year physically and emotionally not being able to have any family for that long and no contact at all.”

Now, Chad and Kevin say they are on the road to healing.

Attorneys for Ruby and Hildebrandt did not respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.