Myka Stauffer’s decision to ‘rehome’ autistic son ‘loving and right thing'

Myka Stauffer’s lawyers have insisted the YouTuber and her husband James are loving parents and ‘would do anything for their children’, after the pair were met with widespread backlash after ‘rehoming’ their son, Huxley, who has autism.

Yesterday people were well and truly up in arms when Myka released a video in which she said their four-year-old – who they adopted from China two and a half years ago – had gone to another home after he had ‘special needs they weren’t aware of’.

The online star – who has sponsorship deals with Big Lots, TJ Maxx and Danimals yoghurt – was immediately hit with major backlash on social media for rehoming Huxley, after previously saying she’d ‘never give up’ on him.

Following the widespread vitriol lobbed at the couple, their lawyers have now released a statement, saying the couple had spoken with professionals ‘to provide Huxley with the best possible treatment and care’.

Thomas Taneff and Taylor Sayers told People: ‘We are privy to this case and given the facts at hand, we feel this was the best decision for Huxley.

‘In coming to know our clients we know they are a loving family and are very caring parents that would do anything for their children.’

The statement added that following Huxley’s adoption, Myka and James ‘consulted with multiple professionals in the healthcare and educational arenas in order to provide Huxley with the best possible treatment and care’.

Taneff and Sayers continue: ‘Over time, the team of medical professionals advised our clients it might be best for Huxley to be placed with another family.’

The couple’s lawyers made clear that in following the advice of medical professionals, ‘this did NOT include any considerations for placement in the foster system, but rather to hand-select a family who is equipped to handle Huxley’s needs’.

They added: ‘They were forced to make a difficult decision, but it is in fact, the right and loving thing to do for this child.’

Concluding the statement, the lawyers said: ‘We have advised our clients not to say anything further at this time, but it is likely they will share more when the time is appropriate for them and all involved.

‘We should be clear that Huxley is a 4-year-old child whose privacy should be fully respected. We know our clients would ask for your prayers and support and to respect their privacy with what has been the most difficult decision of their lives.’

Huxley had a stroke in utero and has autism and sensory processing disorder, with Myka and James initially being told he had a brain tumour before adopting him. 

On Wednesday Myka and James confirmed Huxley was living with another family in a seven minute long video on Myka’s YouTube channel, which has 716,000 subscribers.

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

In tears, Myka – who also has four biological children including an 11-month-old son named Onyx – said she felt ‘like a failure of a mum’ as she added: ‘There’s not an ounce of our body that doesn’t love Huxley with all of our being.

‘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.’

The couple said that they would not reveal exactly what happened with Huxley to protect his privacy, as they didn’t want to impact the four-year-old’s future.

Myka explained that Huxley was now with a ‘new forever family’, who she said were the ‘perfect’ match for him.

Many tweets called her the ‘ultimate Karen’, while one post read: ‘myka stauffer really just gave her kid away bc adoption wasn’t a dreamy aesthetic journey like she thought it’d be. these ig moms are another level of gross. that poor sweet little boy.’