Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - December 19, 2023


Ruby Franke Pleads Guilty to Sickening Child Abuse

Getting Rid of Mom Shame with Emily Oster The #TradWives Are Coming For Your Husbands (According to the NY POST)

Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

143.19

Word count

1,939

Sentence count

133

Harmful content

Misogyny

12

sentences flagged

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.000 Hi. Hi, how are you? Good morning. Happy almost Christmas. Happy end of Hanukkah.
00:00:14.280 Happy New Year. Happy kids being home from school for the next two weeks.
00:00:20.780 oh sorry we have some breaking news over here i've gotten so many probably about a hundred
00:00:31.560 dms from you guys in in the past couple of hours really uh about this story ruby frankie
00:00:40.600 the mom influencer who was charged with abusing and starving her children has finally pled guilty 0.50
00:00:46.720 to child abuse. In court, she expressed regret and sorrow for her actions,
00:00:52.780 revealing that everything she did was disturbingly an act of love.
00:01:01.260 Now, I just, I wanted to do this episode to get in your ears. Mostly, well, it's easier than DMing
00:01:09.580 all of you back. Although, although, hey, love you all. Love you all. But also because this is
00:01:15.880 what this podcast is for. It is to keep kind of, it is to keep a check and balance on the world
00:01:21.840 of influence. And this right now is a huge story in the world of influence. You can consider this
00:01:29.220 like an episode of The Daily, but with like a little bit more spice, probably some more curse
00:01:34.600 words. I'm just, I'm here to give you all of the breaking news on Ruby Franke and get you up to
00:01:40.600 beat. Now, Ruby, if you haven't been listening or reading the sub stack over the influence,
00:01:46.700 she is the mom influencer who had millions of followers who was charged with abusing her 0.99
00:01:51.740 children earlier this year. And this week, she finally pled guilty. Yes, she has pled guilty
00:01:59.100 to child abuse. She was originally charged with six counts of abuse back in September.
00:02:05.360 Two of those counts were dropped under a plea deal that she just took. She just took a plea
00:02:10.460 deal. And we're going to get into the details of that in a little bit. But first, I want to talk
00:02:15.620 about this courtroom situation. You can Google it if you want, but you don't have to because I'm here
00:02:21.420 for you, here for you. She appeared in court in this gray and white striped thing, this ensemble.
00:02:29.620 I will say that it does not look like prison clothing. I've never seen anything like this
00:02:34.900 in a courtroom, and I'm just curious if, like, when someone is currently in jail, they're usually
00:02:41.580 in, like, the orange jumpsuit, right? And I'm looking at these pictures, and I'm like, that top
00:02:47.840 is weirdly flattering. Where can I order? Is that on Etsy? Could I order it? So, I mean, I just did
00:02:54.900 a double take, okay? But I digress. So she was in court, and she pled guilty, and she said, she said
00:03:04.660 in court, it is with my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children, guilty.
00:03:15.000 Guilty. Now, the part that a lot of outlets are focusing on, and this is the part we're going to
00:03:22.320 talk about most today, is that a lot of truly awful details have emerged about how she abused 0.76
00:03:30.940 her children. They came out in this plea agreement. And I just want to give you a little warning
00:03:36.240 right here. If you are the kind of person who does not like to hear about anything involving
00:03:43.600 abuse of kids, and there's a lot of us out there, you might not want to keep listening.
00:03:49.500 There's happier episodes of my podcast, of many podcasts. In fact, I mean, to bring it back to
00:03:55.060 the Daily, there was a great episode on Taylor Swift and Taffy Ackner that you should go listen
00:03:59.700 to if listening to this is going to be upsetting to you. Now, in Ruby's plea deal, she really
00:04:10.600 details these terrible things that she did to her kids. She admits that she tortured her son
00:04:16.300 by forcing him to work, forcing him to work outdoors without adequate water. He got these
00:04:23.180 repeated and very serious sunburns that blistered his skin. And throughout all of that, he was
00:04:28.700 denied food or given very, very little food. He was completely isolated from other people,
00:04:34.680 and when he tried to run away in July, his hands and feet were, this is so hard to talk about,
00:04:43.740 they were regularly bound. He was tied up, sometimes with handcuffs.
00:04:50.380 Frankie admits that she kicked her son while wearing boots
00:04:55.540 That she held his head underwater 0.78
00:04:58.960 And smothered his mouth and nose with her hands
00:05:03.940 Like I said, this is hard 0.99
00:05:09.700 She also told the court, and this is the most fucked up part 0.98
00:05:14.920 That everything she did was an act of love 0.99
00:05:19.780 now she also admitted that she had similarly abused her nine-year-old daughter 0.85
00:05:25.280 also by forcing her to work outside to run barefoot on dirt roads she withheld food and water
00:05:34.680 and this this it just keeps getting worse she repeatedly told her daughter her nine-year-old
00:05:40.980 daughter that she was evil and that she was possessed and that she had to be obedient and
00:05:47.160 repent. And that all of the things that were being done to her were being done to help her.
00:05:59.180 Yeah. The story only gets weirder from here. As part of her plea deal, Ruby Frankie is going to
00:06:09.840 testify against her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt. Jodi has not been getting as many
00:06:16.620 headlines as Ruby, but I do keep getting a lot of messages. And by the way, I read all of your
00:06:21.580 messages. I read all of your emails, your messages, your DMs. I've been getting a lot of messages
00:06:26.740 from people who say they know Jodi and or who have followed the story, who say that Jodi is behind
00:06:33.060 everything, everything. And that seems to be what Ruby's case is going to be based on.
00:06:41.760 She is alleging that she was completely under the influence of Jodi and that it's really Jodi who made her do these things.
00:06:51.680 Now, Jodi was Ruby's business partner.
00:06:54.920 She's allegedly a mental health counselor, also a mom of two, and she ran a YouTube channel called Connections, spelled a weird way.
00:07:02.660 And on the Connections YouTube channel, she talked about mental health, healing and therapy, all through a lens of personal growth. 0.79
00:07:11.320 And so now, Ruby Franke is alleging that Hildebrand was some kind of crazy Svengali who was essentially controlling her during these periods of disgusting abuse.
00:07:27.300 Ruby is saying that she, quote, found herself on this challenging path under the influence.
00:07:34.660 It all comes back to being under the influence, my friends.
00:07:38.160 Every single.
00:07:39.580 Ruby Franke also said that she was, quote, led astray, and that she believed Jodi Hildebrandt
00:07:45.560 had insight to offer for a path to continual improvement, and that Jodi took advantage
00:07:51.260 of her and twisted it all into something completely heinous.
00:07:57.780 Ruby's legal team is claiming that Jodi isolated Ruby from her extended family, her older children, 0.99
00:08:03.400 and her husband, Kevin Franke.
00:08:04.880 Kevin has since filed for divorce, and he wants nothing to do with any of this, allegedly. But I
00:08:11.720 mean, look, do you not know what's happening to your kids? Do you really, do you really not know?
00:08:17.020 I'm not saying, I'm not saying one way or the other. I'm just putting it out there.
00:08:22.940 Do you not know what's happening to your kids? So yeah, yeah. But Ruby Frankie's lawyers are
00:08:31.380 now claiming that this kind of isolation that Jodi Hildebrandt subjected her to created a
00:08:37.300 distorted sense of morality and that she was totally shaped by Jodi Hildebrandt's influence.
00:08:45.720 Influence. That is the key here. Now, I do just want to call one thing that my Sicilian witchiness
00:08:54.040 feels in my body. This is definitely going to be a season of Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story.
00:09:00.980 Just, I'm thinking about the casting of Jodie and Ruby.
00:09:05.380 I want Sarah Paulson to be Ruby Franke.
00:09:07.980 I love you, Sarah Paulson.
00:09:09.940 I want Sarah Paulson to be Charlotte Walsh from Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, too.
00:09:14.820 I'm throwing that out there. 0.75
00:09:16.520 She'd be a hell of a lot better than Julia Roberts.
00:09:19.580 Mm-hmm.
00:09:20.600 Mm-hmm.
00:09:21.920 Okay, so back to the Ruby Franke story.
00:09:23.760 We will know more next year.
00:09:25.880 We're going to know more when Ruby is finally sentenced.
00:09:29.080 But I get why this is the top story on so many websites right now, and everyone has been messaging me about it.
00:09:37.020 I understand why we cannot look away.
00:09:40.960 But I also genuinely believe that we have to continue to report on this story.
00:09:46.500 And not because it's salacious, right?
00:09:50.080 But because of the amount of influence that someone like Ruby Frankie has.
00:09:55.780 and that is what so many of the mainstream outlets are neglecting, completely neglecting 0.60
00:10:02.000 to report on. They are not talking about the influence that these women have on other women.
00:10:10.120 This story matters not because, you know, there are so many crazy details or because Ruby Frankie
00:10:16.700 was a traditionally pretty woman living in Utah with lots of kids. No, it matters because Ruby
00:10:24.120 Frankie had millions and millions of freaking followers. That is a lot of influence. She had 1.00
00:10:29.980 more followers than most celebrities, definitely more than your average local politician, way more
00:10:36.020 than the governor of my great state of Pennsylvania, who should be influencing us all the time. She was
00:10:41.220 influential. She was very influential to people who are raising children. And even though she has
00:10:48.740 finally been charged with these crimes, millions of people watched her advice videos, almost all
00:10:54.620 of which bordered on, or were, child abuse. And who knows how many people implemented the advice
00:11:02.260 that she gave them. We have to talk about Ruby. We have to talk about all of these people who
00:11:08.760 have millions of followers, because they're influencing us. They're influencing so many
00:11:15.160 more people than we can even imagine. And that's why I will keep doing this podcast. I will keep
00:11:21.640 doing it even when major media companies are like, we don't want to, we don't, we don't want to
00:11:28.500 finance it anymore. I'm going to keep reporting on this because the amount of influence that these
00:11:34.960 people have has to be talked about. I'm going to say as one last thing, I've been looking at a lot
00:11:41.560 of pictures of Jodi Hildebrandt. And I just want to get in a room with her. I do. I do. Because I
00:11:47.900 don't know. I don't know how much of Ruby Frankie's allegations are true or if she's trying to save
00:11:53.600 her ass. But I need to know if that woman is charismatic, if she could put me in a trance, 0.99
00:11:58.300 if she could get me to do weird shit. Like, I am now obsessed with learning more about Jodi 0.95
00:12:03.620 Hildebrandt. So if anyone, if anyone wants to call in and chat about it, if you've got some intel,
00:12:08.640 you've got some tea give me a dm give me a dm come on the show but we probably won't do that
00:12:14.980 till january because i'm going to be slowing down on the episodes i'm going to try to take a break
00:12:19.980 and relax and i want you to do that too i will i will be dropping a little more in your feed and
00:12:26.760 i'm going to do a big new year's episode where i talk about all of my resolutions most of which
00:12:32.480 involve unfollowing people on social media. Let's all take a deep breath. Let's take a deep breath.
00:12:40.260 Enjoy the rest of our day. Enjoy the rest of our week. Enjoy time off if we have it.
00:12:46.140 Recognize that having that time off is a privilege. It is. Go enjoy yourself. You deserve it.
00:13:02.480 Thank you.