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Kevin Franke, estranged husband of disgraced Utah parenting blogger and convicted child abuser Ruby Franke, says he has “regrets” about how he handled his wife’s descent into chaos.

Ruby Franke, a 43-year-old mother of six, and Jodi Hildebrandt, a 55-year-old mother of two, ran a joint parenting and lifestyle YouTube channel called ConneXions Classrooms before they were arrested and pleaded guilty to four of six counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse in a St. George courtroom in December 2023.

“The bottom line is: I was choosing to trust a licensed professional mental health counselor and my wife, and they gave some terrible counsel. And I have regrets. And I wish I hadn’t done those things,” Kevin Franke told “Good Morning America” in an interview that aired Tuesday morning.

Ruby and Hildebrandt had partnered to create a joint parenting and lifestyle vlog, or video blog, called ConneXions Classrooms that sold counseling sessions, packages and retreats ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

Ruby Franke family

Most families in the area were aware that Franke had a YouTube channel called 8Passengers, her neighbor told Fox News Digital. When she started another vlog called “Moms of Truth”/ ConneXions on Facebook with Hildebrandt, “a few” neighbors became “very concerned” with the content, the neighbor said. (Moms of Truth/ Instagram)

“It was so outlandish to me that it had to have been fabricated,” Kevin Franke told “GMA” when asked about his initial reaction to his wife’s arrest.

Franke and Hildebrandt were both sentenced to serve four consecutive terms between a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of 60 years in prison.

Now, Kevin is warning of the dangers of social media after his family’s once-private life was put under a microscope. 

Ruby Franke (right) and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt (left)

Ruby Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, were sentenced to prison in Utah for child abuse. (Instagram/ moms_of_truth)

“There is real danger when you place yourself, or your family, your children, out onto public social media,” he told “GMA.”

In dozens of YouTube videos and social media posts, Franke and Hildebrandt coached parents in calm voices from a living room couch on how to raise their children in “truth.” In a video posted just before their arrests, Hildebrandt said pain can be a good thing for children of a certain age.

The case has prompted discussions about how parenting and lifestyle blogs often present only a sliver of a person’s or family’s reality, as well as children’s rights to their own privacy if their parent is a social media star.

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