Shari Franke Speaks Out On Surviving Utah YouTube Mom’s Abuse: 'I Don’t Want It to Consume My Life'
Franke details her childhood in her new memoir 'The House of My Mother'
Franke details her childhood in her new memoir 'The House of My Mother' MANICPROJECT Shari Franke:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/shari-franke-1-122724-ca44adafd90545198fc04f670b3dd737.jpg "Shari Franke, Salt Lake City, UT.")
Shari Franke is moving forward with her life.
Prior to announcing her engagement on Dec. 28, Shari, 21, spoke with PEOPLE in an interview for this week's print issue about how she survived her traumatic childhood. Her memoir, The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom comes out from Gallery Books on Jan. 7.
In both her interview and the book, Franke opens up about looking to the future after her mother, Utah YouTube vlogger Ruby Franke, was arrested for aggravated child abuse and sentenced to four consecutive prison terms of one to 15 years in February 2024.
For more on Shari Franke, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.
After connecting with therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, who advocated for strict parental discipline, Ruby, now 42, disowned Shari and asked her husband and oldest son to move out. She later admitted in a plea agreement that she abused her two youngest children, telling them they were “evil and possessed,” denying them food and water, handcuffing her son’s wrists and ankles and holding his head underwater.
According to Shari, her mother's abuse began before she connected with Hildebrandt and extends as far back to her days as a family blogger under the name of "8Passengers." Justin Hackworth Photography Shari Franke and her mother Ruby Franke in February 2021
She describes her mother as "very authoritative," telling PEOPLE, "She'd always say that she wanted to be a good mom. That was what she always told us, and I think that she wanted to force her kids to also think that she was a good mom. She couldn't handle anybody disagreeing with her."
Shari went on to describe how she became more and more disillusioned with filming every aspect of her life during her teen years.
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"As I got older, I think I was 18 and we went bra shopping — me, and my sisters and Ruby — and she was filming it. And it was the first time that I was like, 'Oh, this is kind of weird and inappropriate and I'm not okay with that,'" she says.
"Looking back, I could see how all of my embarrassing moments as a teenager, I was coerced to post those," she continues. "And that wasn't me actually understanding the full consequences that that would have."
After she was disowned by her mother, Shari continued to be concerned for her younger siblings. In addition to calling child protective services to do a wellness check on the children, she also asked her neighbors to keep tabs on them.
Shari adds, "My biggest priority was just making sure that the kids were alive. As long as they were alive, obviously then I knew eventually things would be okay." Today, she doesn't talk about her siblings or their lives now to protect their privacy.
At this point, Shari says she's not interested in reconnecting with Ruby, who she no longer considers her mother. "She's very selective in what she's remorseful about, and I don't think that she'll ever fully recover until she can look at everything that's happened with her," she says.
"Part of me feels guilty if I don't forgive," she continues. "But I've come to realize that forgiveness for me just means that I don't let her actions consume my thoughts."
"I'm still angry about what she did, of course, and that's never going to go away, but I am living my life and I am not letting her take any more of that from me than she's already taken."
The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom comes out Jan. 7 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.
