Myka and James Stauffer Made "Difficult Decision" in Order to Give Son "Best Treatment": Lawyers
Although Kiwi Botanicals did not address the controversy directly, they captioned a Wednesday post, "Kiwi fans: Thank you for the messages and DM's. We are proud to work with #kiwipatners that tell real stories that we all can relate with. We will always move as quickly as possible to act on your concerns and to use our voice for good."
Companies that seemingly have yet to respond to comments calling for them to cut their partnerships with Myka include Fabletics and Mattel/Barbie — the former of which Myka made a sponsored post for in late April, and the latter back in November, both in posts including her daughters.
Many of Myka's viewers pointed out that they would no longer be watching her family channel, while others criticized her for using Huxley in monetized content. A Change.org petition was also created demanding that the Stauffer family remove all monetized content of Huxley from YouTube.
Myka — a mother of four and popular blogger/vlogger with over 1 million combined subscribers across both her YouTube channels — and James revealed in their tearful Tuesday video that Huxley, who was diagnosed with autism following his adoption, had "a lot more special needs that we weren't aware of, and that we were not told."
"For us, it's been really hard hearing from the medical professionals, a lot of their feedback, and things that have been upsetting," James continued. "We've never wanted to be in this position. And we've been trying to get his needs met and help him out as much as possible … we truly love him."
"There's not an ounce of our body that doesn't love Huxley with all of our being," Myka added, through tears. "There wasn't a minute that I didn't try our hardest and I think what Jim is trying to say is that after multiple assessments, after multiple evaluations, numerous medical professionals have felt that he needed a different fit and that his medical needs, he needed more."
While it's unclear exactly how much of Myka's earnings from partnerships helped her and her husband pay for Huxley's treatments and therapies before placing him with a new family, she has been open on social media and in her videos about their journey toward adopting him and the ups and downs since.
"The last couple days have been hard I don’t want to sugar coat anything," Myka captioned one of her last Instagram posts featuring Huxley, back in February. "We have had a lot of melt downs, and lots of behaviors that have had us on our knees begging god for guidance! On social medial and Youtube we rarely show the behaviors or the hard stuff, because we try our best to respect our sons privacy and dignity. We have hard days, lots of them. I wish autism and adoption trauma had a manual to direct you through it all."
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