At the height of her family’s adoption scandal, YouTube star Myka Stauffer was called out for wearing Cartier.
Myka and her husband, James Stauffer, are the subjects of a new Vox Media Studios docuseries titled An Update on Our Family, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this month. The Stauffers, who did not respond to producers’ requests for comment, rose to fame for their candid family vlogs and brought fans along on their journey to adopt son Huxley from China. Viewers turned against the family in 2020, however, when Myka and James “rehomed” their adopted son, who was diagnosed with autism.
Before Huxley was given a new forever home, Myka was widely criticized for appearing to disengage from raising the “little guy,” who was 2 at the time of his adoption. While the family attempted to care for his medical needs, Myka and James put Huxley in speech therapy.
“We’re gonna go to a different speech therapist,” Myka said in a 2018 YouTube vlog, which was featured in episode 3 of the docuseries. “Not the one that’s $500 a month. But we’re gonna go to the one that’s, like, $70 for 30 minutes.”
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Some viewers claimed the comments were hypocritical after noticing that Myka was wearing a Cartier bracelet as she spoke about cutting back on Huxley’s expenses. At the time the video was uploaded, the jewelry was reportedly worth roughly $6,500.
“But you can’t afford $500 a month for a speech therapist?” one critic said in a reaction video.
Social media personality Sophie Ross, who was at the forefront of dissecting the adoption scandal, reflected on going down the Stauffer family “rabbit hole.”
“[Myka] clearly was just living the life of luxury while apparently saying that, you know, she didn’t have the resources to take care of this human being that she had adopted,” Ross said in the doc.
Others have debated whether Myka and James only adopted Huxley to increase engagement on their YouTube channels. The pair’s popularity skyrocketed from their vulnerable videos about the adoption process, and Myka scored deals with brands like Fabletics, Huggies, Kroger and more. (The majority of these brands terminated their relationships with the Stauffers amid the rehoming scandal.)
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Fans of the Stauffers began to grow concerned for Huxley after he was noticeably absent from the family’s videos. When the couple initially brought Huxley home in October 2017, Myka declared that she and James felt confident about the decision no matter what challenges they might experience.
“If anything, my child is not returnable,” Myka said in a YouTube video uploaded months before Huxley’s adoption was made official.
Myka and James are also the parents of kids Kova, Jaka, Radley and Onyx, who were not adopted. As Huxley was seemingly phased out from the vlogs, Myka was called out for deleting comments about his whereabouts. She and James eventually offered their explanation in a May 2020 video.
“We would never just give up a child with special needs, this is a personal matter to Hux it had nothing to do with he just had Autism,” Myka added while responding to critics in the comments section, claiming Huxley “wanted this decision.”
Myka Stauffer’s Quotes About Adoption Journey, Son Before Rehoming
One month later, Us Weekly confirmed an investigation was launched into Huxley’s welfare after news broke that he was placed with another family. The case was eventually closed, as authorities determined that Huxley was safe and happy with his new adoptive parents.
The Stauffers have largely gone off the grid following the scandal, deleting their family YouTube channel. In a June 2020 Instagram post — her last on the platform — Myka issued a public apology to the adoption community.
“We did not adopt a child to gain wealth,” she insisted. “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. … We love Huxley and know that this was the right decision for him and his future. Praying that Huxley only has the best future in the entire world.”
