Secret new life of loathed influencer Myka Stauffer: Insiders reveal ‘behind the scenes’ details of mom who vanished after sparking outrage for ‘rehoming’ adopted son

For Ohio parenting vlogger Myka Stauffer, having a big family was the ultimate goal.

The YouTuber, 38, and her husband James Stauffer, 40, had been documenting their daily lives for eight years on her successful channel, where she boasted over half a million subscribers.

With four biological children and a fifth child adopted from China, the Stauffers were on their way to becoming the one big happy family that Myka had always dreamed of.

That is, until she posted a video revealing why her adopted son Huxley had disappeared from their social media content. 

Sitting beside her husband on their bed and wearing matching white T-shirts, a tearful Myka revealed they had ‘rehomed’ Huxley due to his behavioral issues – just three years after welcoming their son into their family.

The backlash was fierce, with the Delaware County Sheriff’s Department receiving such a swarm of complaints from enraged fans that they launched an investigation into the wellbeing of the Stauffer’s adopted son.

Nearly six years later, Myka has practically vanished from the internet. 

Apart from her Instagram archive of curated family photos sans Huxley, and her husband’s car detailing YouTube channel, the daily vlogger hasn’t posted on social media since 2020 and has kept comments on her Instagram limited.

After the 2025 HBO Max documentary An Update on Our Family brought renewed attention to Huxley’s rehoming, many former fans were left wondering where Myka and her young children are today.

But according to sources who exclusively spoke to the Daily Mail, the Stauffers are intent on maintaining a low profile.

‘It was an impossible situation. I don’t think anyone did everything perfectly right,’ said Michael Tobin, an Ohio-based videographer and a family friend of the Stauffers.

It was 2012 when Myka Bellisari, then a full-time nurse, began posting videos about weight loss and life as a single mother to YouTube.

She had previously welcomed her first daughter, Nakova, with her former partner Joshua Colliver in 2011. 

The couple were living in Indianapolis and engaged to be married, as an old Blogspot post from May 2012 resurfaced by the Daily Mail revealed they had set a wedding date for the following year.

However, it seems they broke up shortly after their engagement, with Myka meeting her current husband James on the dating site OKCupid in 2012.

Today, Colliver lives in Georgia and works as a physician assistant. He did not respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment.

Myka and James were married in 2013, the same year they welcomed their first child together, daughter Jaka. The couple went on to welcome biological sons Radley in 2015 and Onyx in 2019.

They also launched a joint YouTube channel called The Stauffer Life, where Myka would share daily vlogs about their family routine, homeschooling, and cooking and cleaning videos. She ultimately quit nursing, telling her YouTube viewers that James’ job as an engineer paid ‘at least three times’ what she was making.

Tobin, who first met the couple around seven years ago when he was hired to film promotional content for the Stauffers, said Myka and James were just like any other ‘regular’ couple.

He and his wife, who also have children, soon became ‘best friends’ with the Stauffers and their kids ‘got along pretty well.’

‘That family [vlogging] niche is very interesting because you never know what you’ll get on-screen versus behind the scenes, but it was pretty close to what you saw on screen,’ he told the Daily Mail.

‘They were very hard working and business oriented but they also were chill, funny, and just kind of regular.’

By 2020, Myka had racked up a whopping 700,000 subscribers on her personal YouTube channel and 300,000 subscribers on their family channel. 

Their popularity was due in part to clickbait titles promising intimate details within each video, with videos about Myka’s fertility journey and pregnancy announcements performing especially well.

Channon Rose, a fellow lifestyle and parenting YouTuber with 968,000 subscribers, first connected with Myka in August 2018 when the two shared their mutual love for each other’s content over Instagram DM.

Nearly eight years later, Rose – who appeared in the HBO documentary An Update on Our Family – still described Myka as ‘one of the kindest people’ she has ever met.

‘Everything I knew about Myka, from actually knowing her as a person and not a public figure, was that she was one of the kindest people to me,’ Rose, 40, told the Daily Mail.

In July 2016, Myka and James shared another surprising announcement to their subscribers – that they were in the process of adopting a little boy from China.

As fans of the YouTuber were well aware, Myka had long expressed her desire to expand their family through adoption. Her husband was initially hesitant, she said, but he ultimately agreed.

The couple said they were adopting through the now-closed agency World Association for Parents and Children, or WACAP, and suggested the adoption process was quicker than adopting a child within the United States.

Myka said they looked through hundreds of photos of children who were available for adoption, but none of them ‘spoke’ to her like the photo of the child they would later rename Huxley.

The adoption agency had informed the Stauffers that Huxley had a ‘brain tumor,’ Myka wrote in a 2019 essay for Parade, but it wasn’t until later they would learn the extent of Huxley’s autism diagnosis.

Indeed, Myka’s popularity on the platform skyrocketed as she posted viral content about their son’s adoption. The Stauffers posted nearly 30 videos throughout their adoption journey, culminating in a YouTube video titled: ‘Huxley’s EMOTIONAL Adoption VIDEO!! GOTCHA DAY China Adoption.’

The video, which documented the family’s trip to China to meet the two-year-old, received a whopping 5.5 million views on YouTube before it was permanently deleted. Intimate moments such as Huxley’s first Christmas with their family, bonding with his new siblings, and family days out were also shared online.

It seemed her rising popularity had paid off too, as she landed partnerships with brands such as Glossier, Mattel and Fabletics, and posted sponsored Instagram content for Tide, Canada Dry and Walmart.

The Stauffers apparently used some of the money earned from Myka’s YouTube career to fund Huxley’s adoption from China as well.

In a video from January 2017, she asked fans to donate $5 to ‘unlock a puzzle piece’ that would one day go into Huxley’s baby book so he could see ‘all the people who helped to generously bring him home.’

In another sponsored video posted in May that year, Myka said she was using the money raised from YouTube ads to go towards Huxley’s adoption, writing in the description: ‘All Profits are going towards bringing our SON home from China!’

The Stauffers also helped raise money for Huxley’s adoption through a GoFundMe page. 

In a Delaware County Sheriff’s Office investigation report obtained by the Daily Mail, the Stauffers claimed they raised just $800 from the fundraiser, and the total cost of Huxley’s adoption was $42,000.

As her content took off, fans began to notice a shift in Myka’s otherwise relatable lifestyle. In a 2018 video, Myka was seen wearing an 18-karat gold Cartier Love bracelet that cost over $6,000 at the time.

It was in that same video that Myka told fans they were downgrading Huxley’s speech therapy sessions due to high costs.

But in October that year, the couple purchased a four-bedroom, five-bathroom home in a suburb of Columbus for $670,000. The 4,824sqft home featured multiple fireplaces, a finished basement and a three-car garage.

While it seemed that Myka’s YouTube career had taken off, she soon informed her followers of a personal setback. Their adopted son Huxley did not have a brain tumor at all; rather, he suffered a stroke in utero and had autism and sensory processing disorder.

He was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder level three, the most severe form of autism, which created challenges in his communication. But in a YouTube video posted before his adoption, Myka told viewers ‘my child is not returnable’ and that they ‘would love’ the youngster ‘no matter what state’ he came to them in – making what happened later even more shocking.

Throughout 2019, Myka shared updates on Huxley’s autism diagnosis and ongoing treatment plan. She gushed over being the mother of a child on the autism spectrum for parenting sites like Bump and Mom. She posted clips about his progress with speech, his issues with food anxiety, and even filmed some of Huxley’s nonverbal meltdowns.

The couple also revealed that Huxley had trouble breaking his thumb-sucking habit, though they later faced backlash for a since-deleted video that showed Huxley wearing a thumb guard. Eagle-eyed viewers also shared their concerns when they discovered a deleted clip of Huxley wearing what appeared to be duct tape on his thumb.

The Stauffers expanded their family once again in June 2019 following the birth of their son Onyx, but fans soon began to notice a shift in Myka’s content – namely, that Huxley was no longer being featured on their YouTube channel.

In May 2020, the Stauffers finally answered questions about Huxley’s whereabouts in a now infamous YouTube video, titled An Update From Our Family, in which they revealed they were ‘rehoming’ Huxley.

‘With international adoption, sometimes there are unknowns and things that are not transparent on files,’ James said. ‘Once Huxley came home, there was a lot more special needs that we weren’t aware of, and that we were not told.’

Myka added that a private adoption agency had helped place Huxley with his ‘forever family,’ and that his ‘new mommy has medical, professional training’ with children on the autism spectrum.

While the YouTuber stressed they love Huxley, she explained they weren’t able to give Huxley the appropriate care that he needs.

‘There’s not an ounce of our body that doesn’t love Huxley with all of our being,’ she said, as her eyes welled up with tears. The influencer said ‘the last couple months have been the hardest thing [she] could have ever imagined.’

‘Do I feel like a failure as a mom? Like, 500 percent,’ she admitted, before the couple ended their emotional video with a plea for fans to have ‘grace’ with them during this difficult time.

‘We are still struggling,’ she said. ‘We are going to be heartbroken for a very long time.’

Unsurprisingly, many critics accused the couple of adopting Huxley as a stunt to gain viewers and money from monetized adoption content. 

Myka was dropped by Kate Hudson’s sportswear company Fabletics, as well as her partnerships with Playtex Baby, Mattel and Suave.

As the Stauffers decision to ‘rehome’ their adopted child sent shockwaves across the internet, the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office was forced to launch an investigation after receiving complaints from angry viewers.

In the redacted incident report obtained by the Daily Mail, officer Susanna Leonard wrote that she conducted a ‘well being check’ on Huxley at his new residence after unnamed tipsters had sent reports that contained ‘allegations of abuse.’

Leonard confirmed she met with Huxley and his new ‘adoptive family’ on June 9, 2020, where Huxley ‘appeared to be very happy and well taken care of.’

As part of the investigation, Leonard also met with the Stauffer family on June 4. They provided specific details about Huxley’s behavior, according to the report, which included claims of his ‘severe aggression towards the other kids.’

The Stauffers described the alleged incidents as ‘a very traumatic experience’ for their kids, and shared their concerns that his aggressive behavior would worsen as he got older.

The family also claimed they hired ‘medical professionals’ and therapists to analyze Huxley’s behavior, as they described his ‘self-injuries’ from ‘sucking his thumb so raw that he would have blisters.’

According to the report, the Stauffers said they ‘couldn’t take care of him anymore’ and that Huxley’s rehoming ‘had to happen.’

The Delaware County Sheriff’s Office ultimately closed the case against the Stauffers on June 18, 2020, after determining there were no signs of physical abuse against any of the children.

Tobin confirmed as much to the Daily Mail, as he recalled how he and his wife visited the Stauffers at their home ‘multiple times a week’ before they rehomed Huxley.

‘Every time we came over – and I mean, we all hung out multiple times a week – [Huxley] always had full-time therapists there and people trying to help,’ he said.

As for their decision to place Huxley with a new adoptive family, Tobin described the emotional toll it took on his friends.

‘It tore Myka apart, specifically. I know James was in a really dark place, but he wasn’t talking about it,’ Tobin said, adding: ‘I don’t envy anyone in that situation.’

The family vlogger made her final social media post on June 24, where she finally addressed the ‘uproar’ from their rehoming video and apologized for ‘letting down’ her fans.

‘This decision has caused so many people heart break and I’m sorry for letting down so many women that looked up to me as a mother,’ Myka wrote.

She said she took ‘full responsibility’ for ‘all of the hurt’ her actions had caused, and apologized for ‘not being able to tell more of my story from the beginning.’

She admitted she was in over her head when she adopted Huxley, calling herself ‘naive’ about adopting and not ‘fully equipped’ to deal with the challenge.

Myka said her desire to help a child made her act rashly, admitting: ‘I wanted to help so bad I was willing to bring home any child that needed me. For this, I was naïve, foolish, and arrogant,’ she wrote.

‘I wish so bad I would have been more prepared and done more. I wish the decision to disrupt never had to be made.’

Myka also ‘debunked’ rumors she adopted Huxley ‘to gain wealth,’ explaining: ‘While we did receive a small portion of money from videos featuring Huxley and his journey, every penny and much more went back into his care.

‘Getting Huxley the care and services he needed was very expensive and we made sure he got every service, and resource we could possibly find,’ she said.

Myka confirmed she and her husband ‘are not under any type of investigation,’ and maintained it was ‘the right decision’ to place Huxley in someone else’s care.

‘I can’t say I wish this never happened because I’m still so glad Huxley is here and getting all of the help he needs. I also know that even though he is happier in his new home and doing better, he still experienced trauma and I’m sorry, no adoptee deserves any more trauma,’ she said.

Looking back, Rose said she believed the backlash the Stauffers received for their decision to rehome Huxley was ‘completely blown out of proportion’ and ‘misconstrued’ by the public.

‘I don’t think she would ever intentionally try to harm her kids,’ she told the Daily Mail. 

‘I really think that everything that happened got completely blown out of proportion and misconstrued. I feel horrible for her because she’s a really good person, and she really didn’t deserve that public backlash.’

These days, it appears that Myka has entirely gone off the grid.

Her husband James continues to post on YouTube under his channel The Stauffer Garage, where he posts car flipping, cleaning and detailing videos to his 1.3 million subscribers. The couple did not respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment.

While Tobin revealed that his relationship with the Stauffers has since grown apart after his family moved away one year ago, he suggested that Myka still has a hand in her husband’s social media career – even though she’s now taken a backseat.

‘She was always a good supporter of his strategy and stuff, so I think they’re still doing that,’ he told the Daily Mail.

As for Huxley, who is now ten years old, fans believe they have found the child living happily and out of the spotlight. 

A social media account belonging to an ‘accessible education teacher’ named Lauren Flynn appeared to show photos of Huxley, who has since been given the Chinese name Yue Lin, thriving with his new siblings who similarly have special needs.