There are things that just aren’t funny, and abusing your children for clicks and views in the name of a ‘prank’ is one of them.
Disgraced parents Michael and Heather Martin faced five years behind bars after they uploaded ‘sadistic’ videos of their children on YouTube – one of which included a gun being pointing at them.
They are the parents behind the channel DaddyOFive, which garnered more than 175 million views before YouTube removed it off the platform.
Some of the more than 300 videos they had on their channel, which was created in 2015 before its closure in 2018, included physical abuse of their children, as well as psychological abuse.
Michael and Heather Martin would upload cruel videos of their children on their YouTube channel (Good Morning America)
In one video, the pair asked their children to each slap their daughter, reducing her to tears, while another included Michael pointing a gun at Heather and one of his children, which was titled ‘PRANK GONE WRONG DAD PULLS A GUN!!!’.
One of the worst they posted, however, saw Michael spray disappearing ink on his carpet before him and his wife Heather began screaming at his youngest children Cody and Alex – who were both visibly distressed.
It lead to Cody’s biological mom, Rose Hall, taking custody of him and her daughter Emma, who she also shared with Michael.
Both Michael and Heather can no longer have contact with Cody and Emma ‘unless permitted by court‘, while they are forbidden to post anything about them on social media ‘unless it is for legitimate family purposes’.
Many of videos showed the children in severe distress (YouTube/DaddyOFive)
The pair were sentenced to five years of probation for child neglect in September 2017, meaning it ended in 2022.
Appearing on Good Morning America Lawyer, TV personality Sonny Hostin was asked whether biological mom Hall had a legal stance against the pair.
She replied: “Oh absolutely, I mean think about it these people make between $200,000 to $350,000 a year off of these YouTube videos. So does she have grounds for intentional infliction of emotional distress of her children? Absolutely.
“Do they have the money to pay her? Absolutely, they made money off of these children.”
The disgraced parents issued a public statement regarding their actions (ABC News)
After Michael and Heather were booted from YouTube, they released a statement to WUSA9, the local news station that led a campaign to ban them from the site and first reported on the account closure.
It read: “Our family has worked very hard to heal and re-establish ourselves over the past 18 months. Through a lot of hard work and introspection, we are all doing well, and are happy.
“YouTube is something we enjoy as a family, and we will continue to do it, within the strict boundaries we have set for ourselves. For the sake of our privacy and continued healing, I have no further comment on anything past, or present at this time.”
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues or want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, the Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453) operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and receives calls from throughout the United States, Canada, US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico.