Mike Martin, the man behind the DaddyOFive YouTube channel, and his second wife Heather have lost custody of two of his five children after a now-removed video making one of them cry went viral.
Mashable reports that the children's biological mother, Rose Hall, was granted emergency custody last week after a video called 'INVISIBLE INK PRANK (EPIC FREAKOUT)' saw Cody, 9, reduced to tears after being accused of making a mess created by the couple.
In that video, Mike and Heather poured ink on the child's bedroom floor before suggesting he was responsible and then intimating he was lying when he denied it, which ultimately made him cry. After explaining it was a prank, Cody did not react.
DaddyOFive was filled with videos like this of the pair pranking their children, including Mike convincing Cody he was adopted and another that saw him smashing his Xbox, though they've since removed them all except for the above apology since the one in question blew up.
YouTuber Philip DeFranco picked the video up and wondered aloud whether several videos on the channel could be considered child abuse.
"If they've really been called and CPS [Child Protection Services] have said they did nothing wrong — the pushing, the hitting the screaming, putting the kids in these situations, egging them on — if they saw all that, if they've seen all the other things I would personally label emotional abuse," he said. DeFranco's video has more than three-million views.
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On April 28, the Martins appeared on Good Morning America where Heather said: "[What] you see on our YouTube channel is not a reflection of who we are. It's not."
Mike elaborated he was "ashamed", and that "it started out as family fun … but then it was just about making a video and then making the next video more crazier than the next".
The Police announced it was opening an investigation into the pair the same day.
In a May 1 video, Hall explained the children were "doing good" and "getting back to their playful selves". Her lawyer Tim Conlon said the children were in a "deprogramming sort of mode".
