An Update On Huxley Stauffer, The Child Adopted Into The Vlogger Family At The Center Of New HBO Docuseries

In case you weren’t already concerned about the state of social media, you’re about to be. If you weren’t aware of the Stauffer family before, a documentary released on Jan. 15 featuring the formerly YouTube-famous family called An Update From Our Family is about to change that. The doc initially premiered at the June 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, bringing attention back to Myka and James Stauffer, hugely popular YouTube family influencers who documented the adoption process of a special needs child from China they named Huxley — only to admit in 2020 via a video titled “An Update From Our Family” that they had “rehomed” him with another family.

While many fans applauded the couple for taking in another child on top of their biological bunch, others slowly started noticing the level of nonconsensual exploitation and profit-earning Huxley’s story was generating on their multiple channels. Huxley was born with brain trauma, and the Stauffers documented the difficulty of his adoption process as well as all of his particular medical needs and behavioral difficulties. The Stauffer’s fairytale adoption story came to a crashing halt after months of viewers noticing Huxley and his things were slowly going missing from the videos. Finally, the Stauffers shared the update video on May 26, 2020, tearfully announcing they’d be “rehoming” Huxley after two-plus years of welcoming him into their home. So what happened to the sweet four-year-old child the world came to love after the Stauffers legally undid their adoption? Here’s where Huxley Stauffer is today.

Where is Huxley Stauffer today?

In the lengthy update video, Myka and James explained that Huxley’s medical needs associated with his stage 3 autism diagnosis were far greater than they had been sharing with fans in order to protect the child. They claimed “scary things” had happened that impacted their children, which made them feel they were not the right fit for Huxley despite the years of planning. Because of this, Huxley was released by the Stauffers to a “new forever family” that he had already begun bonding with. According to Myka in the video, Huxley’s new adopted mother has “professional medical training.” Myka herself was a practicing nurse until 2012.

After concerned viewers contacted the local Ohio state authorities back in 2020 to check in on Huxley following the shocking news, Buzzfeed obtained police records that Huxley was unharmed and showed no signs of abuse. He seemed “happy and well taken care of,” according to the written report, in the care of his new mom. Police also publicly stated no illegal or inappropriate steps were taken during the re-adoption process.

In 2024, a private social media account owned by Huxley’s mom shows that Huxley (now renamed to a chosen name of Yue Lin) is still thriving with his new family. His mother is educated in taking care of children with special needs, including Huxley’s new siblings.

Myka’s last Instagram post is a notes app apology from June 2020 that ends with “Praying that Huxley only has the best future in the entire world.”

Does Huxley Stauffer appear in the HBO documentary An Update From Our Family?

An Update From Our Family — inspired by a 2020 New York Magazine article by Caitlin Moscatello — is a three-part docuseries that not only covers the Stauffer family’s story but also the dangers of family vlogging. While the Myka and James Stauffer weren’t included in the making of the documentary (they didn’t respond to producers’ outreach), deleted videos from their YouTube channel are included in the documentary. People reports Huxley appears in some of these snippets, but his face is blurred to conceal his identity.

Additional reporting by Syeda Khaula Saad.