Where Is Ruby Franke's Husband Now? All About Kevin Franke's Life 2 Years After His Wife’s Arrest — and Why He Says He ‘Still’ Loves Her

On Aug. 30, 2023, Kevin Franke's life was turned upside down.

The husband and father of six children learned that his wife of 23 years, family vlogger Ruby Franke, and their family therapist, Jodi Hildebrandt, were under arrest. The pair were accused of abusing Kevin and Ruby’s two youngest children, who were just 12 and 9 years old at the time, after authorities discovered them severely malnourished, emaciated and “covered in wounds.”

The news was a devastating blow to Kevin, who had separated from Ruby a year prior and was allegedly isolated from his wife and children at Hildebrandt’s command.

Over the next six months, disturbing details about the abuse Kevin’s youngest children endured at the hands of their mother and Hildebrandt emerged. In December 2023, Ruby pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse and was ultimately sentenced to between 4 and 60 years in prison (but won't serve more than 30 years because of a Utah law relating to consecutive sentences, per Business Insider).

Related: Where Are Ruby Franke’s 6 Kids Now? Here's What Happened to the Family After the Vlogger's 2023 Arrest

Since Ruby’s arrest and conviction, Kevin has primarily commented on his family’s case through his lawyer, Kester. However, Kevin and his two oldest children, Shari and Chad, spoke out for the first time together in the Hulu docuseries Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, which premieres on Feb. 27.

Ahead of the release, Kevin spoke with PEOPLE about his relationship with Ruby now.

“I'm not ashamed to say that after being married over 20 years to that woman, I truly did and still do love her,” he said. "But that doesn't excuse what she did, and it doesn't excuse how she hurt our children and how she hurt me ... I'm going to do what's best for my children, for my family, and for myself, and that's not going to include her.”

So, where is Ruby Franke's husband now? From his rise to YouTube fame to the family’s fall from grace and how he’s been picking up the pieces for himself and his children, here's everything to know about Kevin Franke's life today.

Who is Kevin Franke?

Kevin first rose to prominence in 2015, when he and his then-wife, Ruby, started a YouTube channel called 8 Passengers.

The family vlog featured Kevin, then an assistant engineering professor at Utah’s Brigham Young University, Ruby, a stay-at-home mom, and their six children: Shari, Chad, Abby, Julie, Russell and Eve. The Mormon couple would regularly film their everyday life in Springville, Utah, and post up to five days per week, according to The Washington Post.

The Franke’s vlog gained traction fast, and by 2020, 8 Passengers had amassed 2.5 million followers and over 1 billion views. No topic appeared off limits for the couple, as Kevin and Ruby posted videos on everything from homeschooling to potty training to their fertility struggles — as well as their approach to disciplining their six children, according to the podcast The Rise and Fall of Ruby Franke.

Related: Where Are Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt Now? The Details Behind the Shocking Case That Inspired Lifetime’s Mormon Mom Gone Wrong

But Kevin and Ruby’s strict parenting style raised red flags for some viewers, with some followers even alleging child abuse. In 2020, an online petition requesting that child protective services investigate the Franke family was signed by 18,000 people. The couple's eldest daughter, Shari, had also called Child Protective Services about her family because she worried her younger siblings were being left alone too often.

The petition referenced several controversial videos on 8 Passengers in which Kevin and Ruby enforced harsh punishments on their children — such as allegedly taking their son Chad’s bed away for months after he played a prank on his sibling. Another instance involved Ruby saying that she refused to bring her daughter Eve, then 6 years old, lunch at school after she forgot to pack it herself.

As a result of the petition, and some 911 calls, Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services did visit the Franke's home in June 2020 and interviewed the children for two hours — but the case was dropped due to lack of evidence for the allegations, per Insider. Kevin said that the case workers were supposedly “embarrassed” they had to conduct the visit and apologized for inflicting stress on the family.

“When they walked in unannounced, Eve and Ruby were baking bread together and doing a puzzle,” Kevin said at the time. “Hardly the evidence of an abusive home.”

In February 2025, Kevin opened up to PEOPLE about what he knew about Ruby and Hildebrandt's abuse.

"A lot of the physical violence that was described was kept hidden from me ... I think Ruby was really careful to hide a lot of that from me," he said. "All of those directives came from Jodi, a licensed mental health counselor. I definitely voiced my opposition and concern and it was always flipped back on to me. Like 'This is why your children are so disobedient because you enable them all the time.' "

What happened to Kevin Franke after he moved out of his home with Ruby Franke?

In 2021, Kevin and Ruby began working with Jodi Hildebrandt, a Utah-based marriage counselor who purportedly specialized in sex and pornography addiction. However, Hildebrandt came with her own checkered past: She had her therapist’s license suspended in 2012 for breaking patient confidentiality.

Kevin and Ruby started participating in ConneXions, a program founded by Hildebrandt that offered marital and parental counseling and promised to “help you flourish in your relationships.”

By 2022, Ruby returned from a ConneXions trip with Hildebrant and another counselor and informed Kevin that his “attitude" was "infesting the family,” his lawyer, Kester, told PEOPLE. Ruby allegedly said that the only way to save their marriage was to separate, so Kevin moved out.

“Kevin did not want to be separated,” Kester claimed to Today in September 2023. “He wanted to work through concerns as a family.”

Despite Kevin’s alleged wishes, over the next year, the father of six said he was only permitted to have contact with Ruby if she reached out first. According to Kester, Ruby only contacted Kevin “three or four times” during that time period.

“I was completely cut off,” Kevin later told authorities, per Salt Lake City’s ABC4.

In February 2025, Kevin told PEOPLE that he understands onlookers who have never experienced what he went through questioning why he didn't try harder to see his children. The dad of six cited alleged "indoctrination, coercion and gaslighting" from Hildebrant as reasoning for his gradual belief that he was the problem in their family.

Following her separation from Kevin, Ruby became deeply intertwined with Hildebrandt. In 2022, she stopped uploading videos to the 8 Passengers channel and officially joined the ConneXions podcast with Hildebrandt. She also changed the handle of her Instagram account from “8 Passengers” to “Moms of Truth,” where she and Hildebrandt began sharing more of their strict parenting philosophies.

“I certainly got weird vibes from Jodi and Ruby,” the Franke's oldest daughter, Shari, told Good Morning America in January 2025. “The vibes I was getting was that something was strange between them.”

What happened to Kevin Franke’s children?

With Kevin out of the house and isolated from his family, Ruby spent more and more time at Hildebrandt’s home in Ivins, Utah — 300 miles away from where Kevin lived in Springville.

“I don’t think it’s normal at all,” Shari told Good Morning America about Ruby living with her therapist and business partner, Hildebrandt.

It was in Hildebrandt’s home that Ruby’s parenting became extreme. Her journal entries from this time detail the cruel torture her youngest children endured from herself and Hildebrandt — including forcing them to do demanding physical labor, denying them food for days at a time, leaving them to stand in the sun for hours and dressing their wounds with cayenne pepper and honey. According to Ruby’s journal, these were punishments for her children being “evil” and “manipulative.”

The abuse came to an end when, on Aug. 30, 2023, Kevin and Ruby’s then-12-year-old son escaped and sought help from a neighbor — who was driven to tears by the boy’s “emaciated” condition. The neighbor called 911 and when authorities arrived, they found Kevin and Ruby’s youngest son and then-9-year-old daughter injured and afraid.

Both Ruby and Hildebrandt were placed under arrest and charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse. The four youngest Franke children were taken into Utah’s Department of Child and Family Services care.

In 2025, Kevin told PEOPLE that Hildebrant's therapy often "insisted that we subject ourselves to pain and discomfort which would change us and make us stronger."

Was Kevin Franke ever charged in connection with his ex-wife Ruby Franke’s child abuse case?

Kevin was initially considered a suspect in the child abuse case involving his youngest children, according to ABC News. When he arrived at the Santa Clara-Ivins Police Department on Aug. 30, 2023, looking for his children, police questioned him about his involvement.

Body camera footage from the interview shows Kevin explaining to the officers that he was not living with Ruby and his children, and hadn’t had any contact with them in “over a year.” As officers describe the condition of his two youngest children and the alleged abuse they endured, Kevin appeared visibly shocked and upset — but still told officers, “I love my wife.”

Authorities quickly confirmed that Kevin was not living with his children at the time and found no evidence connecting him to the child abuse case. He was cleared as a suspect early on in the investigation, and has never been charged in connection with the case.

"A lot of people will look at me and say, 'How could he ever do that?' but for those who respectfully ask me about it and say, 'How could you?' my response to that is 'Who do you love more than anybody?' " Kevin told PEOPLE in 2025. "And I say, 'Well, what would happen if that individual that you love more than anybody started to go to another way and started inviting you and encouraging you to go with them?' Would you be able to easily say, 'Goodbye, you're out of my life?' "

Where is Kevin Franke now?

Since Ruby’s arrest and conviction, Kevin’s focus has been on repairing his relationship with his children, healing their “past trauma and events” and seeking justice for the emotional and physical abuse they endured.

“[Kevin] is making an effort to rebuild and bridge these relationships rather than sling mud and point fingers” at his estranged wife, Kester told Today in September 2023.

He is, however, seeking restitution from Hildebrant. Kevin filed a lawsuit against the disgraced therapist in April 2024, citing “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” “negligent infliction of emotional distress” and “negligence." According to Kester, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of the children in order to “preserve Hildebrandt's wealth and assets until appropriate action can be taken to make the kids whole.”

Kevin is also pursuing justice on behalf of his children by advocating for stronger child welfare laws and pushing for regulations on the life coaching industry in Utah, according to The Salt Lake Tribune and KUTV.

In July 2024, he appeared in front of Utah state legislators and proposed that the state laws be amended to allow child welfare workers to take temporary custody of children when they receive “reported red flags” from friends, family members or neighbors. Kevin pushed for these reforms again in October 2024 and called for an independent investigation of Utah’s DCFS.

“The child welfare system in this state is broken,” he said to legislators, per KSL TV. “It failed my children in their time of greatest need.”

While Kevin works to “strengthen the bonds between he and all of his children,” according to Kester, he is looking to end his marriage to Ruby. Though their separation was initially Ruby’s idea, Kevin filed a petition for divorce — which is sealed under Utah law — in November 2023.

Despite the divorce filing, Kevin attended his estranged wife’s sentencing hearing in February 2024.

“You are the love of my life,” Ruby reportedly said to Kevin at her sentencing. “The ending of our marriage is a tragedy.”

In February 2025, ahead of the Devil in the Family premiere, Kevin opened up to PEOPLE about his progress toward healing and revealed that he and Ruby were "close" to settling their divorce.

“The last letter that I received from [Ruby] from prison was maybe in March or April of last year. And then I requested the Department of Corrections to ask her to stop writing me," Kevin said. "I didn't want to hear anymore. I didn't like what she was saying ... I'm still very angry.”

The father of six added, of his former wife, "I genuinely, genuinely hope she gets the help she needs ... I really believe that she was damaged severely by swallowing the teachings that Jodi just was serving up for her."

As part of the Devil in the Family docuseries, Kevin provided the filmmakers with a lot of unedited vlog footage. He told PEOPLE that showing these vulnerable parts of their lives, including Ruby shouting at their children and demanding they change their mood or alter their words for the camera, was an effort to show the negative effects of family vlogging.

"One of the biggest fears of any family content creator is that the raw footage somehow leaks so people can see what really goes on behind the camera," Kevin said. "These individuals want people to believe that their content is uplifting and wholesome and pure and sure the final product appears that way, but the making of the sausage? That is ugly."

Does Kevin Franke have custody of his children?

The four youngest Franke children have been in the custody of Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services since Ruby’s arrest in August 2023.

Kevin has been fighting for full custody of the children in juvenile court, but as of April 2024, they were still with the state, Kester told PEOPLE.

“He just wants to do what’s best for his kids and get them back, get them under his tutelage and his fathership and protect them,” the lawyer said.

As for his two eldest children, Shari and Chad, Kevin told PEOPLE in February 2025 that he has started his own family tradition of having his kids over for Sunday dinners.

Read the original article on People