Chad Franke is an American social media star who is known for appearing in the family YouTube channel 8 Passengers with his parents Ruby and Kevin Franke and his siblings Shari, Abby, Julie, Russell and Eve. While the main family channel was eventually deleted in mid-2023 amid various controversies, he also has an eponymous personal channel, although he has not been active on it.
Early Life
Chad Franke was initially homeschooled by his parents, but in April 2016, they put him into a regular school thinking it would help in his overall development. He played flag football for two years and wanted to switch to tackle football.
Career
Chad Franke first appeared online on the YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which was created in January 2015 by his parents Ruby and Kevin Franke and also featured his five siblings Shari, Abby, Julie, Russell and Eve. Although the channel was initially focused on his youngest sibling Eve, it gradually became the family channel and regularly featured Chad and other members of the family. Chad first appeared in the third video of the channel, in which he talked about how being homeschooled allowed him to have lunch with his family. He was also seen doing chores and revealed his knowledge about various temples across the world. Since then, he has appeared in several videos exclusively focused on him, like him shopping for his first day of school, or talking about getting braces. He further starred in videos about his birthday celebrations, talked about pubescence and shared his first shaving experience in a vlog.
He created his own separate channel in November 2015 and began posting on the channel with an introductory video titled Welcome To My Channel in January 2018. He then went on to upload several videos playing the Fortnite game, and occasionally made vlogs, travel videos or challenge and makeup videos with his siblings. However, he stopped uploading videos on the channel after posting Three Guys at the Fair with his friends in June 2019.
Controversy
Chad Franke became the center of a controversy regarding the Franke family in 2020 when it was revealed that he was made to sleep on the floor for seven months as a punishment for pranking his brother. It was further revealed that he was earlier sent away for months to a camp called Anasazi. When fans learned that his little sister Eve was made to go hungry as punishment for forgetting to pack her lunch, it sparked a CPS investigation into the family. Reportedly, Chad has either moved out or was kicked out.
Family Life
Chad Franke is the second of six children of Ruby and Kevin Franke and has an older sister named Shari, three younger sisters named Abby, Julie, and Eve, and one younger brother named Russell. His father is an assistant professor of civil engineering at Brigham Young University. His maternal uncle Beau Griffiths is also a YouTuber with a family channel. He has reportedly dated Kesley Leroy and Daniell Tannerites.
