YouTube star DaddyOFive now has two less children to prank.
It’s been reported that Mike Martin has lost custody of his son Cody and daughter Emma to the children’s mother, Rose Hall.
In a video released online, Hall and her lawyer, Tim Conlon, explain that last week, while Mike and wife Heather were appearing on USA Today, they went before the court. They obtained emergency custody of the two children “so they’d be safe”.
In the video, Hall says it was “very heartbreaking and disturbing to see my kids being abused”.
Last Friday, police removed Emma and Cody from the Martins’ house in Baltimore, and took them out to a car where their mother was waiting.
“Cody had a difficult time when the officer brought him out to the car,” Hall says in the video. “He said some things that were disturbing, that he hated me and that Mike and Heather told him I threw him away like he was garbage and I didn’t love him no more.
“That’s not true at all.”
Listen: This Glorious Mess discuss the Martin family's dangerous YouTube account, what do you think of Daddy O Five and Mommy O Five’s videos? Post continues...
According to New York magazine, Hall had custody of Emma and Cody until 2014. She alleges that the children were taken from her illegally and unfairly, and that the Martins forged paperwork from her granting them permanent custody.
Mike and Heather Martin started their YouTube channel two years ago, putting up videos of their blended family of five children. It gained around 750,000 subscribers. The most-watched videos were those where the parents played pranks on the kids – in particular, the youngest child, nine-year-old Cody. In one video, the parents blamed Cody for spilling ink on the floor, screaming and swearing at him as he tried to defend himself. In another, Cody’s iPad was smashed. In others, the older boys were encouraged to be violent towards Cody, and Cody was told to slap his sister across the face.
New York magazine estimates the YouTube channel was earning the Martins up to $US350,000 a year.
But horrified viewers recently began turning on the Martins. Another YouTuber, Philip DeFranco, made a compilation video of some of DaddyOFive’s worst moments. The story blew up in the media.
The Martins tried to explain themselves.
"I am ashamed," Mike Martin told ABC News last week. "It started out as family fun. It started with me and my kids. They would get excited when they would get a lot of views. You know, it was more for shock value.”
Heather Martin said they loved their kids. “They're the most important thing in the world to us. We made poor parenting choices by portraying ourselves this way. But we are not bad people."
Cody and Emma are now with their mother in North Carolina. In the video, Conlon says the kids are being “deprogrammed” by experts. Hall says 12-year-old Emma is eating a lot of cheese.
“That’s the first thing she asked me for, cheese, because she wasn’t allowed to have it at Heather’s house, or Mike’s house.”
Hall believes it will be a long road to recovery for Cody, and the whole family will need a lot of counselling.
“But I know he can do it and we can all get through this.”
Do you agree that the Martins' YouTube account should be classified as child abuse?
